"Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, Simplify." -Henry David Thoreau
On January 15, 2009 at 3:26pm, US Airways Flight 1549 left LaGuardia Airport in New York City. One minute later the plane struck a flock of geese causing a catastrophic failure of both engines. One minute after the strike the plane reached its peak altitude and began to descend. At that point, pilots Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger and Jeffrey Skiles made a split-second decision to abandon the recommendations to land the plane at the airport, and aimed for the Hudson instead. At 3:31pm Flight 1549 landed in the river with zero casualties—the so-called Miracle on the Hudson.
Typically scenarios involving dual engine failure are at higher altitudes which usually gives pilots more time to react. Neither Sully nor Skiles were technically prepared for such a mishap, and no amount of training could have superseded the most important factor in their success. It was their ability to make a simple observation—the river was right in front of them and the airport was not—that made all of the difference.
Sully's decision to aim for the Hudson underscores the need for simplicity to guide our decisions just as much, if not more than, procedures and rules. Multiple flight simulators running the exact same scenario found that a landing on the Hudson, while unconventional, produced a far higher success rate than landing at either of the two nearby airports. By narrowing in on what was right in front of him, Sully saved hundreds of lives.
Most of us will hopefully never have to make life-or-death decisions like the one made on January 15th, but the insights gained from that day can be applied to even the most banal of forks in the road. By subtracting and removing the things that are either unimportant or overly distracting, we are left with only a few good options. Subtract even further and we find that only one of the remaining options actually lines up with a virtuous path.
The path of virtue is not one of self promotion,
Nor is it one of cowardly obscurity.
When we are unsure of how to proceed,
We need to first subtract our ego.
In doing so we can more fully act with integrity,
And act in the world as it is,
Not how we wish it to be.
Eliminating all that does not matter,
Leaves only that which does.
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