[madaxe_again]

I just got into the habit of saying “yes” to pretty much anything. It has taken me on some wild rides indeed, and I am richer in spirit for it. It forged the bond between my wife and me - “shall we do a road trip across Eurasia?”, she idly asked, expecting at the very most a “maybe” - instead I grasped that nettle and applied for visas that day. Six weeks of utterly madcap adventure ensued. Since, I’ve found myself in an unending series of odd adventures of one variety of another, from fostering rare donkeys to… other stuff I’d be wise to not mention. Some episodes I would call ill-advised in the extreme, but all have been enriching.

There’s always a reason to say no, and it’s probably bullshit.

It also has the added benefit of uplifting others - it transforms their idle thought into something that actually happens.

[pixl97]

Isn't this also just a form of survivorship bias? You wouldn't be posting this from prison for example.

Maybe at the end of the day simple platitudes only work for the lucky.

[MarkusQ]

> > I just got into the habit of saying “yes” to pretty much anything.

> Isn't this also just a form of survivorship bias? You wouldn't be posting this from prison for example.

Note that "pretty much everything" is a proper subset of "everything" and could well be defined as "everything except the obviously stupid stuff that's highly likely to lead to bad outcomes", and this from a sample that's already biased in your favour -- e.g. the vast majority of places you can go in the universe would kill you instantly, but the vast majority of places someone might suggest going to, or offer to go to with you, won't.

If you filter out the "let's go see the Titanic in my home-made submarine" ideas, your odds are actually quite good.

[madaxe_again]

Yeah, I have my limits - and while I have agreed to stuff that was in hindsight Quite A Bad Idea, the majority of my “sure, why not” moments have lead to the fantastic.

[lukan]

Well, by definition, if you have bad luck, you are unlucky.

But sometimes you can move out of a chain of bad luck events by doing something else and not repeating the same stuff while hoping for change.

[TeMPOraL]

> not repeating the same stuff while hoping for change

That infamous quote typically attributed to Einstein notwithstanding, really most of learning and progress is done by doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different outcomes.

[Eisenstein]

It also requires a lack of commitments and a modest amount of disposable income.

[madaxe_again]

The two go hand in hand - when I started agreeing to outlandish stuff, I was miserably running my business, commitments oozing from my ears, with barely two bob to run together.

Thing is, when you start saying yes to stuff, and start finding yourself in new places with new people, new opportunities present themselves. I am much materially wealthier now than I ever was when I worked for a living, partly due to income through new connections, partly due to a vastly decreased cost of day to day living by emigrating, and travel has become considerably cheaper as friends I made along the way make for happy hosts, or travel companions to split the cost of something outlandish with.

For example, I invested in an Australian I found wading in the mud at Aralsk, I befriended and helped out a PMC owner I met in Antarctica, and I robbed a Russian oligarch I met on a megayacht, in that order. All were lucrative. One of those falls into the “probably shouldn’t have” category (no prizes guessing which), but is still a “wait, I actually did that?”, and taught me more about myself and this strange world than I anticipated.

Time remains a luxury, but life is short, and easily squandered, so I spend it thoughtfully.

[pjmorris]

> It also has the added benefit of uplifting others - it transforms their idle thought into something that actually happens.

Hearty agreement, from the experience of both the receiving and offering ends of that gesture.