Triage Incoming Opportunities (Don't Try to Catch Them All)

Your life (or one of its many projections) is a stream of opportunities. The world offers you all kinds of opportunities. And it's you who has the agency to choose which ones to catch, and which ones to deliberately miss and let go.

First, you cannot catch every single opportunity. You spend time and effort catching one, you miss a few others. You say yes to a TA-ship -- you'll have to say no to an internship offer.

Next. Every opportunity has a level. And you have your own level. These determine two things: how easy it is for you to catch the opportunity, and how valuable the opportunity is. Have you ever played an MMORPG or any board game with dice-based battles? Then you know what I mean. If you're a tough level-90 half-griffin, you'll easily catch a tiny flying level-12 opportunity, but it likely won't change your life that much.

Thus, you should learn to size up the opportunities that fly by. The best ones, perhaps, have a level that is just about yours (see Tip 240 for a similar model, applied to learning).

Now, every opportunity you catch changes the rest of the stream. Some of them change it a little. Some (likely, the higher-level ones) might change it beyond recognition. So, the second thing you should learn is to predict how a caught opportunity would change the rest of the stream (which is, I admit, very hard).

When an opportunity flies by and you miss it -- it's gone, for good. We call these lost opportunities. You can only catch an opportunity while it's flying by, and you might only have a brief moment for this. It's okay if you let an opportunity fly by deliberately -- but if you wanted it and missed it -- work on your reflexes.

There are two main failure scenarios.

The first one is waiting for easy, "guaranteed" opportunities. These would be of very low level and, if your own level is not that high, you'll end up with junk opportunities that will not get you far. Just like trying to win an MMORPG by only battling the weakest mobs.

The second one is trying to catch the ones that are too hard. You'll fail again and again, and it'll be harder to keep trying. This choice is arguably better than the previous one though -- "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," said two famous philosophers, Friedrich Nietzsche and Kelly Clarkson. So, "fighting tough mobs" over and over again could gradually level you up. If you also learn from your mistakes and adjust your ambitions -- you'll win this game.

However, unlike in an MMORPG, you can't just see your level. So, understanding your actual level (and improving it!) is the third, final skill.