Ok where did I compare your NEWLY ADDED friend SCENARIO to a walter mitty in

Read my eg and then read your example which deliberately ignored a rational thought process by calling it an equation
I also had put OBLIGATION and DESIRE rather than COURAGE.

And you yourself have SWITCHED from having courage to pursue dreams to having courage to not to.
You initialy wrote about people having ” the courage to go with our convictions and leave everything to do what we really want. Life gets in the way.”
Then it became some manna thing and it feeling the same as if you ran and rescued a child of a railway track.
I find it contradictory and this is why perhaps you are having issues with conviction action language.

Besides Your friend may choose to support his siblings and he may not.
After all your friend was not the one who decided to produce a LITTER?
So its upto your friend to analyze and evaluate what he values and decide on his course of action.

Based on what you have written I will tell you how I may see your friend as a mitty

I will categorize your friend to a mitty if he “hopes for the day”
I wont if he waits b/c he is busy with other self chosen tasks, but observing and seeking for an opportunity.

“But you seem to suggest that pragmatism is somehow in odds with a strong conviction – am suggesting that it is just a conviction/courage of a different kind.”
Where did i suggest pragmatism is somehow in odds with conviction?
I said earlier if some one decides that the risks in taking an endevor are notworth it.
And that is the same as conviction.
One can construct linguistic dichotomies regarding pragmatism and conviction and ignore a word which etymologicaly does contains a dichotomy.
The word is DECISION.

Taking your example its Its your friend who is RESPONSIBLE for all his decisions,
wheather he chooses to help his siblings or chase his dreams.
And he better be pragmatic in making that decision.

You can take my actor example.
If some one choses to go the acting route and is ok with doing dishwashing and aware of the probability of sucess and their talents,
He/She is being PRAGMATIC.

There is an old saying You cant have your cake and eat it too.
Pragmatic folks know this, and they think in a Win Win Attitude WRT decisions.
Unpragmatic folks dont, and the create a loose loose, grass is greener on the other side.
Its unpragmatic language to “Life gets in the way” or to frame it interms of courage.
When the decisions are about longterm goals, and good old pursuit of happiness.

Language Matters The choice of how you frame your current situation decisions and future actions all have to be
labeled appropriately.

It is a trade-off and a melee of choices – everyone understands that. But you seem to suggest that pragmatism is somehow in odds with a strong conviction – am suggesting that it is just a conviction/courage of a different kind.

This will be my last post on this topic, am traveling on my job will be busy the next few days. Please excuse me.

If the conviction is contradictory, it suggests confusion. So I would not put that in the conviction.

And there is nothing wrong with pragmatism?
If Person X has a desire ^x^ and he/she judged that X’s succeeding at it has a low probability and very high costs(money, time, opportunity, lifestyle, geography) and X choose not to pursue it. It was b/c X was convinced that risk rewards don’t match up.
If X choose to wallow and sulk over ^x^, X is a stupid. Sometimes X indulges in idiotic daydreams that this ^x^ thing happens instantly and lives in that fantasy. Think Watler Mitty, Mungeri Lal or SheikhChilly. They know that in any undertaking there is a probability of success, ie it successful outcome is not a guarantee , and they don’t even seriously evaluate all the options including there risk tolerance and will often hide that by suppressing ^x^. or much worse blaming parents societies etc….

You also realize that you read the speeches of only the successful ones. Even among these, there are typically 2 categories – the ultra-brilliant or the ‘made it after reaching the nothing to lose’ stage.

No I dont realize that. Nor do I see two categories. You read speeches of only those who chose to give a speech.
So I only see those 2 wide categories ie those that choose to give a speech and those that did not.

” You are not jumping in front of a train to pull out a kid stuck in a track.” Trust me, after you are out of a job in a foreign country with very little support to fall back on, paying the bills and clearing debts after a manna (read ’steady income’) does feel that way.

No way I’d ever trust that and that in some way diminishes the selfless courage people have demonstrated in the kid in track scenario
You chose to go to a foreign country and you choose to purchase what ever you did and you have to pay the bill….
You could have chosen to be an actor and that may have meant washing dishes and other part time work while keeping days free for auditions and selling your screenplay.

It depends what you value, what you are willing to do or pay to get what.
As JK said at sometime an adults have to take responsibility and that means not blaming your parents, and I would say the rest of the world too.

You are not jumping in front of a train to pull out a kid stuck in a track. Trust me, after you are out of a job in a foreign country with very little support to fall back on, paying the bills and clearing debts after a manna (read ’steady income’) does feel that way.

As JK said “the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you.”

If some one is not able to make up there mind they dont have a conviction
They are not convinced about what they want to do, they have certain attractions to other ideas but thats it they are not convinced its a good idea.

But what they may be convinced about is that there is a convenient zone that they are in and they dont want to change it.

There is nothing wrong with it.
Each choice has its own unique stresses and pleasures.
And this was an ultra simplification. There is no bohemian bourgeoisie dichotomy but an entire spectrum of choices.

And Courage is not the right idea here, but Desire, Passion, Tradeoffs, Commitments and Obligations are a few ideas would use.
You are not jumping in front of a train to pull out a kid stuck in a track.

But are optimizing all the elements that you want for 40+ years starting from your 20’s.

pc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_disputes_over_Harry_Potter#RDR_Books

Great points by both Rowling and Feynman. But I wonder how many of us have the courage to go with our convictions and leave everything to do what we really want. Life gets in the way.

As for Rowling, she’s obviously as amazing as her books tell. I disagree with this: I do not think one needs failure or poverty to provide stimulus to produce good work. For eg. Wodehouse – apparently the dude lived a prince’s life! He wrote because he liked it. But, the things he wrote about reflect what kind of life he lived and saw around him – elite English life.

The best commencement address I’ve come across – which prompted me to read many books on him later – is Feynman’s Caltech one .

As a person of science myself, I find his ‘principles of experimenting’ very insightful, and think people should use them as thumb-rule. For any field or case, actually .