“Look before you leap.”

It doesn’t tell you how many times you should look before you leap. Would looking once suffice? Yes, in most cases, I reckon. The important thing is for you to gauge the risk and make sure you are very unlikely to fall flat on your face (or on a pile of unmentionable waste) at the other end of the arc that your bodily projectile is about to describe.

“Think twice before you jump.”

This instruction is numerically more prescriptive. Here, a jump may be construed, for the sake of argument, as a rapid, muscle-propelled displacement of the body, first upwards, off the ground, and then downwards, freefalling into something (far) below the ground. It is different from a leap, which is levitation from the ground to clear a barrier, followed by a return to the terra firma.
You may be jumping into a body of water. You may be jumping into the deep-end of that body of water. You may be jumping off a cliff when extreme circumstances so demand.
If it’s a big jump with big consequences, ask yourself if you really want to take the plunge. If the answer is yes, ask yourself again: Am I sure?

If it’s another yes, then just do it.

The same applies to “Measure twice, cut once“.

The fabric, once cut, ceases to be whole and the two pieces so created must be fit for purpose. It’s a big decision. Measure once, you think you’ve got it. Measure again, you are sure you’ve got it. Now, steady your hand, take a deep breath, bury that blade into the fabric, and SLICE! (Oh how I love language!)

I prefer “Measure twice, cut once” to “Think twice before you jump”. I feel I’m in control when I am the one who’s holding the blade and can do whatever I like to the fabric that is the sum total of all the resources available to me in this life, including but not limited to time and money.
On the other hand, if I were to jump, I can look and think any number of times before I jump, but if I do decide to go ahead, I’ll have to take the plunge into the unknown, and that’s SCARY!

The equivalent Chinese proverb goes, “Think thrice before you act.”

Does that mean Chinese people as a nation are more cautious and risk-averse, and less spontaneous?

Well, the word ‘thrice’ in the Chinese adage is not meant literally. It’s a ballpark number. The advice is for you to repeat the process of weighing the pros and cons, to consider and reconsider. You can think twice and then act. If you are sure of it, then twice is as good as thrice.

As to reductive statements about a nation, I’d like to quote from Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil: “[A] proverb [i]s the last refuge of the mentally destitute.”

Ditto any sweeping generalisation about an entire nation.

Back in the early noughties, my friend Hervé Sun remarked on the difference between businessmen from Suzhou and Wenzhou. He said, “If a guy from Suzhou has 500k yuan, he would invest 100k. If a Wenzhou dude has half a million, he would invest 2 mil!”

I’m pretty sure both of them have turned it over in their heads many times – more than twice, more than thrice – before plonking the sacks of cash in front of their (dodgy) partners with a throaty hiss, “I’m in.”

Whereupon the fabric is cut and a chunk of it is cast to the wind of chance. New possibilities are thus created and your life won’t be the same again. If you are the tailor of your own life, you are free to measure over and over again, but eventually, do make the cut in the fabric, so you can make the cut for life’s most rewarding game of growth, change and renewal.