Recklessly Optimistic

The beauty of brevity

"And so..." is the most powerful phrase in the English language. Optimism is the root to a tree with infinite branches. It will lead you to magical places.

I worked on this idea for quite a while. It's something I've always thought, and at times in my life tried to explain to friends with little success. Through the process of writing, I realized that my thought wasn't necessarily unique, but that I just had never heard it succinctly phrased. I shaped and iterated on this idea through multiple drafts until it was nailed down. The idea made sense, and I argued it thoughtfully.

The idea I'm referencing here is that optimism is infectious, and by defaulting to the optimistic view when hearing thoughts or ideas from other people you are able to mold outcomes and create value through a daisy chain effect. "And so..." tacked on to the end of an idea will compound into other ideas, leading to outcomes you wouldn't believe. This is in contrast to words like "but" or "that won't work", which will shut an idea down in its entirety, leaving the potential that lay within buried forever.

It was verbose. I used too many words to explain what ended up being a simple thought. Just when finishing the final draft, I listened to Michael Lewis's appearance on the Tim Ferris podcast and he did in one sentence what took me an entire essay. I'll leave you with his quote:

"Do not ask if it is true, ask what it might be true of. Listen to people in a generous way. Pick out the value they are saying. Where it leads is magical."

I caught myself needlessly expanding on this quote. I won't. It captures the essence of "and so" wonderfully.