These slogans were offered as conclusions - as wisdom - and they may have been, I suppose. But none of them gave me any clue as to what to do or what I should focus on.
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In retrospect, when I sought the counsel of these more experienced men, I had been seeking simple answers to complex questions - do this, not that - because I was unsure of myself and stressed by the demands of my new job. But simple answers like the āstart highā pricing advice - so seductive in its rationality - had distracted me and kept me from asking more fundamental questions.
Each of us, then, draws conclusions based on incomplete pictures. It would be wrong for me to assume that my limited view is necessarily better.
That I was resorting to my own discursive thinking was an irony not lost on me. My advice to Beth, however well intentioned, was not able to conclusively penetrate the mental walls she had erected.
When confronted with the empirical and evaluative complexity that faces us, it can be easy to feel clueless, as if thereās nothing at all we can do. But that would be too pessimistic. Even if weāre walking backwards into the futureāand even if the terrain weāre walking on is unexplored, itās dark and foggy, and we have few clues to guide usānonetheless, some plans are smarter than others. We can employ three rules of thumb.
Reading the documents referenced, I had to agree. They presented a plethora of broad goals and affirmations of values such as democracy and economic well-being. But there was little guidance as to how to actually deal with the national security situation.