Building takes time and skill, breaking takes moments
Summary
- Building takes time and skill, breaking takes moments
Details
- Good news comes from compounding which takes time
- Bad news comes from a disaster or catastrophy which can happen in a second
- construction takes skill, engineering and planning, demolition requires only hammers
- growth and progress are more powerful than setbacks. good news is more powerful than bad.
References
Quotes
Same for careers, social progress, brands, companies, and relationships. Progress always takes time, often too much time to even notice it’s happened.
But bad news? t’s not shy or subtle. It comes instantly, so fast that it overwhelms your attention and you can’t look away.
It’s a natural part of how the world works, driven by the fact that good news comes from compounding, which always takes time, but bad news comes from a loss in confidence or a catastrophic error that can occur in the blink of an eye.
The idea of “complex to make, simple to break” is everywhere. Construction requires skilled engineers; demolition requires only a sledgehammer. Even when something doesn’t break easily, the thing that could break it is usually simpler than whatever made it.
The irony is that growth and progress are way more powerful than setbacks. But setbacks will always get more attention because of how fast they occur. So slow progress amid a drumbeat of bad news is the normal state of affairs. It’s not an easy thing to get used to, but it’ll always be with us.
Good news is the deaths that didn’t take place, the diseases you didn’t get, the wars that never happened, the tragedies avoided, and the injustices prevented. That’s hard for people to contextualize or even imagine, let alone measure.
But bad news is visible. More than visible, it’s in your face. It’s the terrorist attack, the war, the car accident, the pandemic, the stock market crash, and the political battle you can’t look away from.