Wild Problems: A Guide to the Decisions That Define Us

We want to belong to something larger than ourselves.

In the poem, Hein says that when you face a dilemma and can’t decide what to do, flip a penny in the air. Not as the way to make the decision, but as the way to discover “what you’re hoping,” in Hein’s words.

Rules prevent us from fooling ourselves.

You have a child because it makes your entire life richer even if it makes your bank account poorer.

So spend less time on figuring out the “right” decision and more time on thinking about how to widen your options and how to cope with disappointment if the decision turns out badly.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.

Those choices define who we are and give our lives meaning when they work out well. Even the challenge of facing them when they don’t work out well is part of living as a human being.

For most of us, being a vampire isn’t just uncharted territory. It’s immoral territory. Even if everyone who makes the leap to being a vampire is wildly happy and disdainful of the pitiful mortals who don’t drink blood, a lot of us think that becoming a vampire is simply wrong. We don’t care how happy we’d be living forever and coming out of our co

Happiness, at least in the sense of stuff that’s fun and makes you feel good, is overrated.