A Spark by Innocent Mwatsikesimbe from Questions Asked, chapter 3

Smart and stupid are verdicts issued by onlookers, and onlookers score the wrong game. A choice can look senseless from outside precisely because the reasoning behind it lives where nobody else can see it — in what a person knows about themselves.

Innocent has watched the confusion up close: “My actions and decisions seem unreasonable, and maybe even stupid at times.” He once let go of an offer that shocked the people around him. Four years earlier he would have taken it gladly; but by the time it arrived he had since found a better opportunity, “one that was even more in line with who I am,” and he wasn’t willing to leave it. He walked away happy and satisfied.

That is how losing turns into victory. The offer was a win by everyone else’s count; declining it was the win by his own. Sometimes stupid on the public scoreboard is the only way to be smart on the one that matters.