Slippery Slide Effect

The Slippery Slide effect is the mind's way of saving time. Sometimes the saved time costs more than it buys.

The effect is strongest precisely when nobody mentions it. Awareness does not kill it, but awareness does give you a vote. Without awareness you are not even in the room where the decision is made.

What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.

A pressure cooker teaches more about time than any seminar: sealed, steady heat does in twenty minutes what an open pot cannot do in an hour. Attention is the lid.

Time is the one currency the Reserve Bank does not print more of. Do not memorise it. Notice it. Noticing is the senior discipline.