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4 Mental Frameworks Smart People Use Before Every Big Decision
You are not gonna like what Darwin did.
At 29, Charles Darwin was stuck on one of the most important questions of his life. To marry or not to marry? He approached it with a weird list. A strange way to reason through a big decision. You are not gonna like what Darwin wrote. I still can’t process his reasoning. But here we go. Darwin took a piece of paper and wrote across the top, “This is the Question.” Then made two columns. Marry. And Not Marry. Under Marry, he listed “children — (if it Please God) — Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one, — object to be beloved & played with. — better than a dog anyhow.– Home, & someone to take care of house — Charms of music & female chit-chat. — These things good for one’s health. — but terrible loss of time.”
Under Not Marry, he wrote, “freedom to go where one liked — choice of Society & little of it. — Conversation of clever men at clubs — Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle. — to have the expense & anxiety of children — perhaps quarelling — Loss of time. — cannot read in the Evenings — fatness & idleness — Anxiety & responsibility — less money for books &c — if many children forced to gain one’s bread. — (But then it is very bad for ones health[19] to work too much).”
