ask how big the loss would be if you failed. So long as it would be tolerable, that's all you need to know. Take that next step, and see what happens. - Oliver Burkeman

it hardly matters how committed you are to making the best use of your limited time if, day after day, your attention gets wrenched away by things on which you never wanted to focus.

This need not be taken as an argument for abandoning all future planning whatsoever, but it serves as a warning not to strive too ardently for any single vision of the future. As Chris Kayes pointed out, the mountaineers who died climbing Everest in 1996 did successfully reach their goal; they ascended to the summit. the tragic unintended consequence was that they didn't make it back down alive.

Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason