Same as Ever: Timeless Lessons on Risk, Opportunity and Living a Good Life

Some species survived a long time. But among groups of species, the probability of extinction was roughly the same whether it was ten thousand years old or ten million years old.

Guiding people’s attention to a single point is one of the most powerful life skills.

The next is accepting that what’s rational to one person can be crazy to another. Everything would compute if everyone had the same time horizon, goals, ambitions, and risk tolerances. But they don’t.

“I was hoping to remember to stay afraid because that is the best way to stay alive and not make careless mistakes.” It’s good advice and a smart insight that applies to many things.

Laundromats were also invented in the 1930s after sales of individual washing machines fell; they marketed themselves as washing machine rentals.

Keynes, the British economist, had discovered in his work that economies are not machines. They have souls, emotions, and feelings. Keynes called them “animal spirits.”

In any normal person’s life, miracles should occur at the rate of roughly one per month: The proof of the law is simple. During the time that we are awake and actively engaged in living our lives, roughly for eight hours each day, we see and hear things happening at a rate of one per second. So the total number of events that happen to us is about

Who do I think is smart but is actually full of it?

Last is the power of stories over statistics. “Housing prices in relation to median incomes are now above their historic average and typically mean revert” is a statistic. “Jim just made $500,000 flipping homes and can now retire early and his wife thinks he’s amazing” is a story. And it’s way more persuasive in the moment.

People tend to have short memories. Most of the time they can forget about bad experiences and fail to heed lessons previously learned. But hard-core stress leaves a scar.