November 17
For those who do not know the harbour they want to sail to, no wind is the right one.
Letters to Lucilius, Letter 71
Listening mode
For those who do not know the harbour they want to sail to, no wind is the right one.
Sometimes an offer comes along and you find a catch in it. The job is too far away, the project too small, the timing bad. With the next one, something else bothers you. Every refusal can be well justified. At some point, though, you notice that the reasons change while the hesitation stays the same.
Then perhaps it isn't the offers at all. What you lack is a measure by which one of them could prove to be right. Without it, you weigh every possibility against all the others that also exist, and none of them survives the comparison.
But such a measure rarely comes from thinking alone. Some of what you want you recognise only once you have committed to something and notice what it is like to live in it. Your hesitation protects you from a wrong choice. At the same time it deprives you of the experience from which a better one could emerge.
The next offer will have a catch too. Whatever bothers you this time may be the most precise thing you know so far about your goal.
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