The decision you keep putting off
Kuhn’s essay in the middle is the long one, and the reason this path exists. The three short pieces after it are for the days after you decide.
- Risk-takers decide faster
Bensusan argues that needing time to think usually means fearing risks you already understand, so ask what you need to know to decide now, with a reply from Andy Matuschak on when waiting helps.
- Staring into the abyss as a core life skill
Kuhn argues the people he admires most are great at thinking clearly about uncomfortable questions, like whether to pivot, quit, or break up, as Wave's CEO did through a dozen pivots, and offers ways to get better at it.
- Gradient Descent Valleys
Feeling stuck usually means a valley, not a local minimum: avoid volatile moves like quitting, build steady momentum, and take bigger steps in calm, promising directions.
- Psychokinetics
Ponnekanti argues the only reason that gets a stuck person moving is the feeling of motion itself, so the goal is two good days in a row, which gives you a trend worth defending.
- On the importance of infinitesimal actions
Greenfeld uses the single vote to show how actions too small to matter on their own, like a little junk food or doomscrolling, add up to define who you are.
Next path: How do I choose what to work on?