“I’d Rather Be Wrong And Know, Then Right And Never Know” (Kingston’s Journey #60)

The Privilege We’ve Been Given

Logic and reasoning are gifts given to us on a scale that is unimaginable to any other living creature. If I see a smoking building, odds are there is a fire and it’s best to not enter the complex. More abstractly, we can take our past experiences (or even better the past experiences of others) and project them into the future.

Winston Churchill once said,

“The further you can look into the past, the farther you can see into the future.”

If I worked a job for the past year and was unhappy, odds are I will remain unhappy if I did the same thing over again and worked that job a second year. Or, these people’s bodies are wrecked because they played a certain sport for many years. Now let’s say you’d like to keep good health well into old age. Then it is probably not a good idea to participate in this sport.

The beauty of humanity though is that there is no 2 exact copies of people. At the very least we have scars/birthmarks/moles on different parts of our bodies. And that’s just the exterior. It’s been said that “great minds think alike” but no 2 minds think exactly like one another.

And that’s the point, there are so many small bits of differences that layer on top of one another which has the potential to create vastly different outcomes.

Examples to elaborate, the above example, you work that same unhappy job but you get a new manager that came in and changed everything from personnel to the work environment that was in your favor. Or that rough sport, somehow you avoided those hard hits and escaped long term injury.

Goals Are Like Shooting A Rifle

In both cases, good on you. But you did nothing different then anyone else, including your past self. So this favorable outcome was a simple matter of luck, you played with fire and somehow you didn’t get burned.

That’s bit what I’m referring to. I’m talking about when you go after something specific. That specificity leads to the stacking of those small layers of differences which become big differences when compared to what other people are doing.

Another example, say you want to be the first Parisian to start a modeling school in Ecuador and import those candidates to Paris. That’s specific. And then you fill in the logic. Is there a demand for foreign models in Paris, is there a sizable pool of interested candidates, etc.

It’s like a gun, when you shoot it at a target 10ft away you can be reasonably certain where the bullet is going to go. If the target is far away, windage and gravity adds layers of complexity that make things less certain.

So if it’s so specific, its far out there enough so that there is nothing to compare it to. In such instances maybe you’ll be the first to guide your bullet to the bulls eye.

And with any achievement, being first always holds weight. Who’s the first man that landed on the moon? Easy, Neil Armstrong. How about second? Much fewer people know.

And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be wrong, know and try something else then right (ie. make the safe pick) and never knowing.

You know?

Kingston S. Lim
June 29, 2020
Cancun, Mexico

I'd Rather Be Wrong And Know, Then Right And Never Know Kingston S. Lim

Life Update: I head off to CDMX tomorrow to be a WWOOF volunteer farmer tomorrow on the outskirts of Mexico City. I honestly feel less excited about this then when I first conceived the idea last year. Things have been pushed back from April to May and now the end of June. My mind has been wandering to do other things.

Still, I’m going to make the most out of it.

About Kingston’s Journey Series: Kingston’s Journey is a lifelong series. This is the travel journal I take with me. Whether you have questions such as how to change my life or how to travel the world, I think you’ll find value in the life lessons I’ve experienced and documented in this travel notebook. They may serve as travel inspiration for you. In Chinese, there is a saying, “讀萬卷書,不如行千里路.”

This means, instead of reading ten thousand books, why don’t you walk a thousand miles. This is my inspiration to travel every nation (or as many as possible) in my pursuit of my global MBA by learning as much as possible and recording these life lessons learned only by travel. In the end, I think the achievement of dreams, personal growth & aspirations out there through travel and adventure will lead to a more fulfilling life. Living and experiencing the “now” is how I’ll make my life a great memory in the future.