Stop and think-pause is power.

Frank Partnoy, author of Wait: The Art and Science of Delay used be an investment banker—a career whose pillars of spontaneity, risk, and unchecked ambition loom over the so called failures of hesitation, procrastination, and delay. Then he stopped to write the inverse. With semantics and science, Partnoy tries with his book to tease these failures out of our culture’s value system, attempting to prove that patience is virtue once again.

We like to believe there is wisdom in our snap decisions, and sometimes there is. But true wisdom and judgment come from understanding our limitations when it comes to thinking about the future. This is why it is so important for us to think about the relevant time period of our decisions and then ask what is the maximum amount of time we can take within that period to observe and process information about possible outcomes.

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Our ability to think about delay is a central part of the human condition. It is a gift, a tool we can use to examine our lives. Life might be a race against time, but it is enriched when we rise above our instincts and stop the clock to process and understand what we are doing and why. A wise decision requires reflection, and reflection requires pause.

[via Brain Pickings]