Hack or Be Hacked

Complacency can be a serious mistake, and premature action can also be a serious mistake. So how does one resolve this paradox?

I answered this in my previous posting:

By shaving sensitively away at it. Open your mind to possibility...and then keep gently stretching that opening.

If you don't shave away at it, and don't stretch the opening, then developing events will shave and stretch you.

That's what a lobster boil (very gradually heating live lobsters in a pot of water to lull them into complacency so they don't try to jump out until it's way too late) is. That's the world shaving and stretching you; conditioning you to accept worse and worse circumstances without ever quite activating an emotional response to spur you to jump and sputter.

So: you can hack the world (per my strategy), or you can let the world hack you. Either way, the trick is to sensitively avoid the emotional tripwire. Do stuff - move forward; make progress! - to avoid complacency...while calming the hell down to avoid counterproductive overreaction.