英文书阅读1：What are principles?

Principles are concepts that can be appliedover and over again in similar circumstances as distinct from narrow answers tospecific questions. Every game has principles that successful players master toachieve winning results. So does life. Principles are ways of successfullydealing with the laws of nature or the laws of life. Those who understand moreof them and understand them well know how to interact with the world moreeffectively than those who know fewer of them or know them less well. Differentprinciples apply to different aspects of life – e.g., there are “skiing principles”for skiing, “parenting principles” for parenting, “management principles” formanaging, “investment principles” for investing, etc—and there are over-arching“life principles” that influence our approaches to all things. And of course,different people subscribe to different principles that they believe work best.

What is written here is just my understandingof what it takes: my most fundamental life principles, my approach to getting whatI want, and my “management principles,” which are based on those foundations.Taken together, these principles are meant to paint a picture of a process forthe systematic pursuit of truth and excellence and for the rewards that accompanythis pursuit. I put them in writing for people to consider in order to helpBridgewater and the people I care about most.

Until recently, I didn’t write out theseprinciples because I felt that it was presumptuous for me to tell others what wouldwork best for them. But over time, I saw the people who I cared about moststruggling with problems and wanted to help them; I also found that theirproblems were almost always the result of violating one or more of theseprinciples, and that their problems could be solved by applying theseprinciples. So I began writing down the types of problems and the brokenprinciples that caused them. When I began, I didn’t know how many principles Iwould end up with but, through this process, I discovered that about 200principles pretty much cover all the problems. I’m sure that I will come upwith more as I learn more.

When I say that these are my principles, I don’tmean that in a possessive or egotistical way. I just mean that they areexplanations of what I personally believe. I believe that the people I work withand care about must think for themselves. I set these principles out andexplained the logic behind them so that we can together explore their meritsand stress test them. While I am confident that these principles work wellbecause I have thought hard about them, they have worked well for me for manyyears, and they have stood up to the scrutiny of the hundreds of smart, skepticalpeople, I also believe that nothing is certain. I believe that the best we canhope for is highly probable. By putting them out there and stress testing them,the probabilities of their being right will increase.

I also believe that those principles that aremost valuable to each of us come from our own encounters with reality and ourreflections on these encounters – not from being taught and simply acceptingsomeone else’s principles. So, I put these out there for you to reflect on whenyou are encountering your realities, and not for you to blindly follow. What Ihope for most is that you and others will carefully consider them and try operatingby them as part of your process for discovering what works best for you.Through this exploration, and with their increased usage, not only will they beunderstood, but they will evolve from “Ray’s principles’ to “our principles,’and Ray will fade out of the picture in much the same way as memories of one’sski or tennis instructor fade and people only pay attention to what works. So,when digesting each principle, please ask yourself: “Is it true?”