Proactionary Principle

A principle is a spine. Proactionary Principle is the sort of spine that lets a person, or an institution, stand up straight.

The principle works because it moves the decision from the moment of weakness to the moment of clarity. You choose the rule when you are calm, so that the rule can carry you when you are not.

Strip it to the floor and you find an old instruction: look carefully, judge slowly, act decently. The new name exists because the old instruction keeps being forgotten.

Ask the LIC agent at your door and the trader at his terminal — both will tell you the same thing in different clothes: money listens to discipline and laughs at moods.

Money is a good clerk and a terrible master; the arrangement is entirely up to us. Write it on the wall of the mind, not the wall of the house. The house already has enough instructions.