The most enduring quote in the fiction, Life of Pi, is perhaps: “To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.” There are many things that render us immobile in a philosophical sense. Perhaps the most prevalent reason why people give up is because they are simply overwhelmed.
There is way too much to try and get right in this day and age. You need to take care of your kids and/or parents, your significant other, and of course, yourself. You need to exercise enough, eat right, maintain good hygiene, work, pay taxes, and get vaccinated (not necessarily in that order). It is also recommended that you find a hobby, spend time with friends, and get involved in your community. If you are a parent, the to-do list is compounded by things like hockey practice and meet-the-teacher night. We sign up for so much in life, and then struggle to meet the demands they entail.
Engineering projects can find themselves in a predicament similar to that of overwhelmed people. When constraints in a project begin to press up against one another, the engineer caught in the middle tends to feel suffocated. The typical reaction to this is usually the most dangerous one: the engineer is rendered immobile. I have been caught together with a team of engineers in a scenario of this type, and learned a very valuable lesson from it: indecision is in fact worse than a wrong decision.
