Most decisions that go wrong do not fail on the merits. The logic was sound, the information was there, the intention was right. What failed was the moment. Kamandaka, the seventh-century Sanskrit scholar whose Nitisara distilled the political philosophy of Kautilya's Arthashastra into a more portable form, devoted considerable attention to this problem. He wrote for kings managing courts, alliances, and wars, but the underlying architecture of his thinking about timing maps with uncomfortable precision onto the smaller decisions of an ordinary life.
