A woman wearing headphones was waiting to cross a busy street in Manhattan. As soon as she stepped off the sidewalk, a bicyclist bumped her and continued riding. She turned to scream a bad word at the cyclist. And that’s when a taxi hit her. And now she’s dead.

A much younger version of the author was standing next to that woman, and he learned something that day.

Setbacks happen. If you make a mistake and get frozen in what was, time goes on and you stop. And you’re living life with your eyes closed in memory. And then you get run over by a taxicab.

The Art of Learning is about the mastery of chess. It’s also about Tai Chi. But it’s really about presence of mind.