Live by Umesh

I just came across a really interesting concept, which I’ll call “Living by Umesh”, or, being “Umeshian”–in honor of the source.

A blogger by the name of Scott Aaronson had an advisor named Umesh Vazirani who used to constantly repeat the following:

If you’ve never missed a flight, you’re spending too much time in airports.

Scott goes on to expand this concept with the following four instantiations:

If you never cut yourself while shaving, you’re not shaving close enough.

If you’ve never been robbed, you’re spending too much time locking doors.

If you’ve never been rejected, you’re not asking enough. (The easiest to state, the hardest to practice.)

And the most poignant for the current context:

If you’ve never regretted a blog entry, your blog is boring.

I find this general principle very attractive. I would say it abstracts to:

If you’re not experiencing a negatives while living life, you’re not living life enough.

Do you have a better version of the theme? And can you add any to Scott’s four?