Escape From Pianosa

Nassim Taleb’s book, The Black Swan really got me thinking about luck, and how to incorporate the idea of luck into a philosophy of life. If we are bad at predicting, for instance, what career will make us happy, then we should try as many different careers as possible to see which one we like. We should take lots of small risks, with a chance for a big payoff.

If I try out a career as a real estate agent, and I find that I don’t like it, then I have failed. I’ve made an error. But I’ve lost very little–my risk was small. In fact, the discomfort I experienced in a career I disliked was probably balanced out by the comfort of my newfound knowledge.

I can repeat this process with many careers until I find one that I enjoy immensely–my Black Swan career so to speak–something that I enjoy so much, that all the previous failures and erroneous predictions about what career would make me happy are insignificant.

In attempting this process, I must be wary of the confirmation bias. If, before becoming a real estate agent, I convince myself that real estate will make me happy (as opposed to keeping an open mind about the result), then I will look for confirming evidence of this belief. I will say “see, I do love real estate!” every time something positive happens, and I will tend to ignore the disconfirming evidence until it grows so immense that I am unable to ignore it.

Falling into such a trap will cause me to waste precious time that could be spent looking elsewhere for career satisfaction. And more time wasted means fewer opportunities to find the ideal career.