🌰 what is your unicorn hair

But if Mandy was a fairy, why was Mother dead?

“You’re not a fairy.”

“Why not?”

“If you were, you would have saved her.”

“Oh, sweetie, I would have if I could. If she’d left the [unicorn] hair in my curing soup, she’d be well today.”

“You knew? Why did you let her?”

“I didn’t know till she was too sick. We can’t stop dying.”

• Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine, Chapter 4

This scene stuck with me as a child: how could Ella’s mom not eat the hair? She knew it was critical to her health. How could she be okay dying?

As an adult…it feels more like an apt metaphor for human decision-making. No matter how old we get, it’s incredibly hard for us to connect short-term inconvenience to long-term exponential impact. Vaping, exercise, eating vegetables, vitamin D supplements for infants. What is your unicorn hair? The thing you know is healthy and necessary, but is inconvenient enough that you’re convinced it doesn’t matter that much. Not in your case.

Info:

• Source/Inspiration: Ella Enchanted - Related to:
  • [[🌰 make decisions with limited downside and unbounded upside - antifragile]]
  • [[❔ Should retail investors buy for emotional benefits in addition to financial returns]]
  • [[🗨️ bots trade more stocks than humans]]
  • 🌱 is BNPL good or bad

---

Want to comment? Write your response anywhere (e.g. Twitter, your blog, etc). Make sure to include a link to this post. Then paste the URL below and hit submit to send it my way!

Don't want to do that? @ me on twitter or mastodon

Every post on this blog is a work in progress. Phrasing may be less than ideal, ideas may not yet be fully thought through. Thank you for watching me grow.