I noticed recently that the tradeoff you have to make to be more dependable in that way is to be less open. Less open to new projects, new information, new people. You have to be less malleable, and more definite. It is largely about being able to knowingly cut the majority of the world from your attention, to ignore what isn’t important. I don’t think that’s a bad thing—there’s much more joy in being focused and determined than in shifting your attention and commitment around. But it is something that comes more naturally to people once they figure out what seems to them to be the right path, once they figure out a task or project that deserves their undivided attention and commitment, once they don’t feel like they’re getting stuck in a local maximum in an avoidable way.
I noticed recently that the tradeoff you have to make to be more dependable in that way is to be less open. Less open to new projects, new information, new people. You have to be less malleable, and more definite. It is largely about being able to knowingly cut the majority of the world from your attention, to ignore what isn’t important. I don’t think that’s a bad thing—there’s much more joy in being focused and determined than in shifting your attention and commitment around. But it is something that comes more naturally to people once they figure out what seems to them to be the right path, once they figure out a task or project that deserves their undivided attention and commitment, once they don’t feel like they’re getting stuck in a local maximum in an avoidable way.
Sounds like choosing to write the bottom line first in a bounded way, and accepting that tradeoff for certain gains.