#Anticipation

Skating Toward Tomorrow: The Strategy of Anticipation

Moreover, anticipation pairs naturally with optionality. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues in Antifragile (2012), positioning where the upside is convex—and the downside bounded—turns uncertainty into a tailwind. Small, reversible bets in the direction of likely puck trajectories let you benefit from hits while surviving misses. This portfolio of options mirrors a forward drifting into open ice: you don’t know the exact pass, but you maximize the surface area for good outcomes. Thus, the goal is not perfect prediction; it is advantaged exposure to plausible futures. [...]

Opening Every Door Before an Uncertain Dawn

In the wider tradition, dawn signifies awakening—intellectual, moral, or spiritual. Plato’s Republic (c. 375 BC) presents the ascent from the cave into sunlight as the soul’s conversion from shadows to truth. Echoing this, Thoreau’s Walden (1854) claims that only the day to which we are awake truly dawns. Even religious watchfulness counsels readiness: Luke 12:35–36 urges lamps kept burning for a master’s unexpected return. Dickinson’s doors meet these motifs at a human scale; they are small, repeatable preparations for illumination that cannot be scheduled yet can be welcomed. [...]

Embracing the Present: Letting Go of Predicting Outcomes

Finally, letting go of outcome-driven thinking cultivates resilience and trust—in oneself and the unfolding process. By facing uncertainty with openness, people become better equipped to handle the unforeseeable twists of life. Corneille’s advice thus emerges not as a call for passivity, but as an invitation to act purposefully and adaptively, transforming uncertainty from a source of dread into a canvas for growth. [...]

The Allure of Aspiration Over Actual Wealth

Building on these classical insights, modern psychology reveals why the prospect of riches stimulates us more than actual gain. The field of behavioral economics, especially through Daniel Kahneman's research, shows that anticipation triggers brain chemicals like dopamine, creating excitement independent of tangible outcomes. Thus, the mere possibility of acquiring wealth can yield a greater high than the reality, which often fails to match our lofty expectations. [...]