Our view of history is so strange. So much of what we know about the past is based on which objects or writings randomly survived. When it comes to knowledge of things that happened thousands of years ago, it’s never based on deliberate messages preserved for that purpose. It’s always something like some random receipt for bad copper or the rules of a weird game of chance that happened to survive, and then we have to extrapolate based on that.
That’s true of distant history, but it’s true of yesterday, too. We don’t appreciate how random so much of our lives really are – how many things that we know, we only know because one of a million possible combinations of moments occurred at exactly the right time.
To make good decisions, you need to understand that you can’t really control this. You’re not so much planting and picking crops as you are catching meteorites. Good things are happening all the time, but you have a very small field of control – it’s basically just you and your reactions.
It’s an adventure! It’s fun, and it’s joyous, but it isn’t secure. It can’t really be planned or controlled. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t good.
The Opportunity Machine 