never let one tragedy increase to two or three

At age 76, Charlie Munger looks back on those years and notes that time takes some of the pain out of losing a child. If it didn’t, he says, he doesn’t know how the human race could continue. Munger believes that by coping as best he could with the tragedy of Teddy’s death, he was doing the only rational thing. “You should never, when facing some unbelievable tragedy, let one tragedy increase to two or three through your failure of will.” As for the end of his marriage, the years have given Munger a mature perspective on that as well:
I don’t spend much time regretting the past, once I’ve taken my lesson from it. I don’t dwell on it. Certainly I had more sense when I was 32 than I did when I was 22. But I don’t have any feeling of terrible regret. We ended up with nice children. I think my ex-wife has been reasonably happy in a different situation.

Heavy stuff from Munger. Many of the saddest movies (House of Sand and Fog, Breaking The Waves?) involve one tragedy increasing. On a smaller scale, feels like in sports you often see one misfortune or error begin a cascade.

That’s from: