Options May be a Failure

We have a tendency to want to keep our options open. This is a very good principle for defense, escape and evasion, but it can also inhibit accomplishment. If we think too much about the road not taken, we are going to spend all our time at that fork in the road.

John Tierney, writing in The New York Times talks about a study and a famous example:

The next time you’re juggling options — which friend to see, which house to buy, which career to pursue — try asking yourself this question: What would Xiang Yu do?


Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century B.C. who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops’ cooking pots and burned their ships.

He explained this was to focus them on moving forward — a motivational speech that was not appreciated by many of the soldiers watching their retreat option go up in flames. But General Xiang Yu would be vindicated, both on the battlefield and in the annals of social science research.

Of course we don't remember the names of other would be conquerers who tried the same maneuver only to be slaughtered on the beaches or starve for lack of cooking pots.

I wonder if my habit of buying more books than I can read is another example of keeping too many options open. I would probably learn more by finishing the ones I have than by buying new ones in the hope that they might be clearer.