Drunkard's Walk
So I finally finished reading The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives when I was in Florida. I liked it a lot actually. The book basically talks about the role of chance in our lives, and how it plays a bigger role than one might think. In addition to providing some interesting anecdotes and a review on probability, it actually can also be a self-help book for people are experiencing repeated failures (*point to self*).
It mentions how people like to believe in order because that means we have control, and while that's usually a helpful way to think, I realized lately that it can also be kind of negative when you start to fail repeatedly because you start blaming yourself. Even though it definitely might be true that you're doing something wrong, it's also important to remember that maybe it's just chance. The book provides really good examples and backed it up with some mathematical explanations. I use to attribute bad luck to either fate or disapproval from someone up there, but believing in randomness is actually a lot more comforting.
This is near the end and it basically sums up why it made me feel better about everything:
"What I've learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized. For even a coin weighted toward failure will sometimes land on success."
You always hear people say that you shouldn't give up, but to think of about it quantitatively is actually very compelling.
It mentions how people like to believe in order because that means we have control, and while that's usually a helpful way to think, I realized lately that it can also be kind of negative when you start to fail repeatedly because you start blaming yourself. Even though it definitely might be true that you're doing something wrong, it's also important to remember that maybe it's just chance. The book provides really good examples and backed it up with some mathematical explanations. I use to attribute bad luck to either fate or disapproval from someone up there, but believing in randomness is actually a lot more comforting.
This is near the end and it basically sums up why it made me feel better about everything:
"What I've learned, above all, is to keep marching forward because the best news is that since chance does play a role, one important factor in success is under our control: the number of at bats, the number of chances taken, the number of opportunities seized. For even a coin weighted toward failure will sometimes land on success."
You always hear people say that you shouldn't give up, but to think of about it quantitatively is actually very compelling.