I am having a bad day today. I am not sure if it is because I am feeling sleepy, I am stressed because of work, I had a bad meeting, or all of this.
Before I sat on my bed and started writing this, I saw my Kindle. I remembered that I am currently reading Nassim Tulib’s book, Antifragile.
The book idea is simple, yet powerful. Nassim argues that the opposite of fragile isn’t robust or unbreakable, the opposite is antifragile.
Antifragility is a property in a system – natural or man made – where the system instead of breaking, it gets stronger the more stress you apply to it.
One of the main conditions of antifragility is giving the system enough stress to get stronger but not so much that it collapses.
Think of the flu shot which contains a small dose of the virus. Too much will kill you, too little won’t create enough stress for your body to create the antibodies.
I think bad days are like flu shots. They apply enough stress to make you stronger – as long as nothing very bad happened – but too many of them can kill you.
I think I had a flu shot today.