
What You Don’t Know Makes You Nervous - robg
http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/what-you-dont-know-makes-you-nervous/
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wallflower
"Comfort is the worse kind of slavery because you're always afraid that
someone or something will take it away. But if you can not just anticipate but
_practice_ misfortune, then chance loses its ability to disrupt your life."

Substitute "comfort" as used above for the things you want to become better at
but fear and/or are fearful of taking action on.

 _Practice_ what you fear doing, using baby steps to start, if necessary.
Experience with what you fear doing will make you fear it less.

I have friends who are totally unafraid of losing their job by being fired or
even quitting. Why? Because they have been fired or have quit so many times in
their life. Granted these are artist/waitress/bartender types but the point is
they are literally unafraid of being laid off or leaving job security behind
(something most professionals like myself can barely imagine e.g. quitting and
receiving zero unemployment benefits in this economy)

Quoted excerpt from Stoicism 101: A Practical Guide for Entrepreneurs

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gojomo
This was surprising to me, even after understanding the main thrust of the
article:

 _Those who learned that they had a very high likelihood of developing
[Huntington's Disease] were happier a year after testing than those who did
not learn what their risk was._

Even though it's still just "high likelihood" rather than certainty, and
there's still some doubt about when it emerges, the knowledge was comforting.

This may explain why various order-for-yourself tests -- like full-body scans
-- are popular even though medical researchers warn they don't pass an overall
cost/benefit analysis (especially given the rate of false positives which then
result in unnecessary treatment).

Indeed -- might even the false certainty of a false positive be a net comfort,
given what this article reports?

