Quotes from Tom Vanderbilt

We live in an age of high performance, in which everyone is supposed to be constantly maximizing their potential, living their "best life." Social media has made everything from marriage proposals to this morning's breakfast into exquisitely choreographed, unsubtly competitive rituals. The ethos of work—"the long arm of the job," as one scholar put it—pervades our leisure, to the extent that we even have any.

We "overvalue performance," as one psychologist put it, "and undervalue the self." We're afraid of being just okay at things. This is a trap. "For to permit yourself to do only that which you're good at," writes the legal scholar Tim Wu, "is to be trapped in a cage whose bars are not steel but self-judgment.

Letting someone else's ideas about performance stop you from trying something means relinquishing your freedom.

Our confidence has been so shaken by this cult of expertise and performance that when we don't perceive ourselves to be experts at something, we're almost expected to outsource the task who someone who does.

Traffic is more of the in between time where we think more about where we are going than where we are at the moment.

What makes a good judge? Confidence for one. An expert, in Shanteau's view, is someone good at convincing others he or she is an expert. Good judges may make small errors, but they will "generally avoid large mistakes." When they encounter exceptions, experts are good at making"single-case deviations in their decision patterns." Novices, meanwhile, tend to stick stubbornly to the rules, even when they are inappropriate.

That which is best for an individual's interest may not be best for the common good.

Knowing where to look—and remembering what you have seen—is a hallmark of experience and expertise.

Take the most notes on the first day. That's when you see the most.

cultivation, of that spirit of the novice: the naïve optimism, the hypervigilant alertness that comes with novelty and insecurity, the willingness to look foolish, and the permission to ask obvious questions—the unencumbered beginner's mind.

Experts are people who have the same opinions as other experts.

Intersections are crash magnets.

The road itself tells us far more than signs do.

Drivers should not drive more than a minute without having a (purposefully-designed) curve.