Bart De Vries

"If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time." — Chinese Proverb Just because something has been a lot of work or consumed a lot of time doesn’t make it productive or worthwhile. Just because you are embarrassed to admit that you’re still living the consequences of bad decisions made 5, 10, or 20 years ago shouldn’t stop you from making good decisions now. If you let pride stop you, you will hate life 5, 10, and 20 years from now for the same reasons. Being able to quit things that don’t work is integral to being a winner. Going into a project or job without defining when worthwhile becomes wasteful is like going into a casino without a cap on what you will gamble: dangerous and foolish. “But, you don’t understand my situation. It’s complicated!” But is it really? Don’t confuse the complex with the difficult. Most situations are simple—many are just emotionally difficult to act upon. The problem and the solution are usually obvious and simple. It’s not that you don’t know what to do. Of course you do. You are just terrified that you might end up worse off than you are now. I’ll tell you right now: If you’re at this point, you won’t be worse off. Revisit fear-setting (tim.blog/ted) and cut the cord.