A Restless Mind?

What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities, of having a patient but restless mind.

 

--Victor Cherbuli-something, 19th century novelist.

[Cherbuliez. Never read him, have you?]

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"...a patient but restless mind." I like that. Dunno if I've got it, but it sounds like something desirable to me. What do you think?

I see those qualities as opposites...but not quite: a teeter-totter twixt patience and impatience, between going slow enough to truly see, yet not just siting and gazing at the sunset (or television) w/o ever engaging the mind/imagination, w/o asking a question or wondering about another possibility.

Reasoning and decision-making and luck are marvelously intertwined, suggests Daniel Kahnman, in THINKING, FAST AND SLOW. He says that our minds are wonderful at not only leaping to conclusions but then in mounting a sturdy defense for those conclusions. "Fundamentally, the native decision-making process is lazy," he would say. The challenge is to learn to take a restless few steps backwards to gain a broader perspective, to ask some hard questions, or challenge some basic assumptions.

What keeps the mind "restless" yet "patient"? I've got a few ideas, but would love to hear yours before I answer my own question...as impatient teachers far too oft do!