The next time you’re juggling options — which friend to see, which house to buy, which career to pursue — try asking yourself this question: What would Xiang Yu do?
Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century B.C. who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops’ cooking pots and burned their ships.
He explained this was to focus them on moving forward — a motivational speech that was not appreciated by many of the soldiers watching their retreat option go up in flames. But General Xiang Yu would be vindicated, both on the battlefield and in the annals of social science research.
Ive been a natural door closer. Ive chosen to cut way down on weddings, to turn away work in favor of my family, to end relationships with people because you cannot keep all doors open. Its exhausting. Read this article. I love it! It was in the New York times and now I feel vindicated!
Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century B.C. who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops’ cooking pots and burned their ships.
He explained this was to focus them on moving forward — a motivational speech that was not appreciated by many of the soldiers watching their retreat option go up in flames. But General Xiang Yu would be vindicated, both on the battlefield and in the annals of social science research.
Ive been a natural door closer. Ive chosen to cut way down on weddings, to turn away work in favor of my family, to end relationships with people because you cannot keep all doors open. Its exhausting. Read this article. I love it! It was in the New York times and now I feel vindicated!
My life is so much better since I started doing this about 2 years ago, afater a friend of mine "Angela from Michigan, had a heart attack at 39 and she told me, "I was photographing my brains out and chasing everything, while my kids were growing up practically MOTHERLESS." )
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/science/26tier.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/26/science/26tier.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
Also here is another article on the same subject .
No comments:
Post a Comment