## Metadata - Author:: [[benkuhn.net|Benkuhn]] - Full Title:: Staring Into the Abyss as a Core Life Skill - Category:: #🗞️Articles - Document Tags:: [[Sin machirulos hay paraiso. una charla heterofriendly sobre management|Sin Machirulos Hay Paraiso]] - URL:: https://www.benkuhn.net/abyss/ - Finished date:: [[2022-12-25]] ## Highlights - Staring into the abyss means thinking reasonably about things that are uncomfortable to contemplate, like arguments against your religious beliefs, or in favor of breaking up with your partner ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gmzs29h0sv169tmve37r9wty)) - Starting a company requires a lot of staring into the abyss, because it involves making lots of serious mistakes (building the wrong thing, hiring the wrong person, etc.); to move quickly, you need to be fast at acknowledging and fixing them ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gmzssb2bnptpqv2f1y8sfqs7)) - Say, “I’m not ready.” Say, “I don’t know how to do this yet.” These are terribly difficult words to say…. Say, “I’m not ready to write code,” and your status drops like a depleted uranium balloon. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gmzswgv6h6e8920kc1t77f68)) - Another situation where people often procrastinate on staring into the abyss is when they take a job that turns out not to be very good. It’s common for people stay in these jobs for a surprisingly long time, even when the job market in their field is very hot and they could easily find a better position somewhere else. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gmzsze9fbz51xbb69xg4m413)) - One solution to the timing problem is to check in about your abyss-staring on a schedule ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gmzt0yrn5vwgahmkdmn771sg)) - When I think about the other people (whom I’ve met or followed closely) whose work I most respect and who have had the biggest influence on how I think and act, they all have a similar willingness to admit that they were previously extremely wrong about things ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01gqen70qze9snafb4r56bxgfh)) The original sentence is from [[nietzche|Nietzche]]: > He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hkqknajsa187x06dse96fx60)) ^a753e9