The only real valuable thing is intuition.- Einstein

I wonder about this one. Why is intuition so important? What happens when we don't use it? Steve Jobs felt that intuition was the most important thing motivating his work and his life, and he sought ways to develop his awareness of it. Intuition is that thing we feel but cannot explain why we feel it. An automatic response when we encounter something. Intuition is marked by experiences or things we notice collectively but haven't yet figured out the details of. E.g. when we first meet someone we may be surprisingly uncomfortable for reasons we cannot even understand. Only later, after reflection or getting to know the person we may find out why. Intuition allows us to make relatively quick judgments about a situation without gathering a ton of information- suggesting that the rational act of gathering the information or reverting to logical thinking over our immediate emotional reaction could skirt some of our underlying uncertainties or certainties about whether something is right to act on. Examples include feelings of positivity or conversely, discomfort, about someone you are interviewing, feelings about a first date, feelings about a potential new employer, feelings about which career path you should take, feelings upon meeting your cousin's new friends, feelings about whether entrepreneurship or big company format is right for you. Intuition can help lead you to decisions to pursue these things whether or not you have gathered all the information beforehand. Intuition provides shortcuts to things that if we had to research them, would take thousands of hours for all the decisions we have to make in a given day. Instead, intuition acts collectively on the learned experiences we have had prior to the moment/ event/ or person on which we use it.

I wonder how Einstein used intuition? He certainly used it to find and pursue his calling. He probably called on intuition many times over his lifetime to convince him to become an physicist/astrophysicist/etc. instead of rationalizing himself into the life of a highly-paid doctor, lawyer or businessman. He is easy to applaud and we don't question the correctness of his path (most of us), but just as importantly the world also needs doctors, lawyers and businessmen. How did he know he would be destined for success? He didn't. He was just one of the few who took the chance. Thank goodness only a few of us are irrational enough to take that chance or the world's production and services would likely stop. Perhaps it's proportionally likely according to the rules of natural selection that only a small percentage of people will take such a risk and devote their life to a mostly unpaid hobby? I wonder what Darwin would say.