Instrumental experiment: Cut your losses

Epistemic status: Shower thoughts, but also – Actually trying things.


There are times in life where you will have seen the warning signs.  You have watched others fall on your journey.  If anything was the canary in the coal mine, this is it.  The world just tore you a new one and left you bleeding, but you can still walk away with what you have right now. You will be thinking, “should I double down?”.  No.  Now is not one of those times.  There are times when you will have a victory to speak of, you can walk away a champion.  This is not one of those times.  This is a time

This is a time to cut your losses.  You just lost $10k?  You’d be a fool to risk any more energy throwing good after bad.  That’s a cheap mistake.  Better than $20k.  The best action you can take is to cut your losses and go home without any more mistakes.  The best time to exit is before the fall from grace, the second best is to get out before the crash.  Don’t wait till things get worse before you get the hint. There is no need to be proud here.

Every piece of advice lands on a spectrum.  Roughly speaking, a spectrum of “very applicable” to “the opposite of the right thing to do”.  This piece of advice falls somewhere on that line.  And you know who knows where exactly this advice lands?  Future you.  Hindsight is 20/20.  If, like me – you don’t have a time machine.  And you still want to learn these lessons of where to apply this advice – the one way to learn is to try it.  Run experiments.  Learn what works through trial and error.  The only warning I suggest is – don’t take too much risk in making mistakes.

Committing to this advice is to say, “I take the information I have at hand, and I make this choice willingly, based on what I know – this is probably the right decision”.  And who could fault you on that?  I couldn’t.

good luck.


Counterpart: Instrumental Experiment: The Double Down

Counterpart: Instrumental experiment: Cut your losses

Meta: 3 short posts that go together.  But which advice do you follow?

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