experience, The Mechanics of Virtue, aphorism 307

307

In the pell-mell of experience, if one is obsessed with the goal, nothing needs to be perfect – and this obsession is fortunate, because nothing will ever be as perfect as the strategy from which one began with great confidence.  

If however one is obsessed with the strategy, real conditions must match the plan perfectly throughout application ... or one loses confidence.  In failure, such a person is tempted to blame the strategy and place his confidence entirely upon constructing a new, superior plan, for it is obvious that inadequate information and poor logic undermined the former strategy.  But this would only be half of the solution.  In immediate reality imperfection is the rule, and so the belief in the existence of a “perfect strategy” sets up a confidence which is too easily undermined in the crucial stage of execution. 

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