Usually, my invisible choices come in the form of a) being provided with or finding an easily accessible solution to a larger problem and b) ignoring ways in which that solution turns out to be insufficient for my goals. I’ve tended to solve these by
1. Reflecting on whether I am doing things that do not fully result in the outcomes I want for them
2. Spend five minutes thinking about what might solve the issue
3. Spend five minutes trying to implement any solution I came up with
Some things that this process has helped me resolve:
-I listen to music while I shower but sometimes water gets under my phone case, rendering my phone mildly inconvenient to operate for >30 minutes. Solved by getting a new, waterproof case and turning my phone’s screen to face down instead of up while I shower
-I tried learning to bike early this year and my parents let me borrow an old bike. I was able to ride, but only very awkwardly. Solved by visiting a bike shop and test-riding the first bike they recommended. It turned out the bike I was riding was just too small.
-My Pandora music station was tolerable but I kept hearing a lot of stuff I didn’t enjoy. Solved by actively down-voting songs I wouldn’t be excited to hear again.
-Flossing my teeth is mildly annoying and wrapping dental floss around my fingers would tend to reduce circulation a perturbing amount. Solved by buying dental floss picks.
Also tangentially, something similar to this also happened to me with graduate school. For a long time, I saw graduate school as the logical extension of me being a person interested in and good at computational research. Turned out that my day-to-day enjoyment of professional work is basically identical to my enjoyment of research, except paying more.
Usually, my invisible choices come in the form of a) being provided with or finding an easily accessible solution to a larger problem and b) ignoring ways in which that solution turns out to be insufficient for my goals. I’ve tended to solve these by
1. Reflecting on whether I am doing things that do not fully result in the outcomes I want for them
2. Spend five minutes thinking about what might solve the issue
3. Spend five minutes trying to implement any solution I came up with
Some things that this process has helped me resolve:
-I listen to music while I shower but sometimes water gets under my phone case, rendering my phone mildly inconvenient to operate for >30 minutes. Solved by getting a new, waterproof case and turning my phone’s screen to face down instead of up while I shower
-I tried learning to bike early this year and my parents let me borrow an old bike. I was able to ride, but only very awkwardly. Solved by visiting a bike shop and test-riding the first bike they recommended. It turned out the bike I was riding was just too small.
-My Pandora music station was tolerable but I kept hearing a lot of stuff I didn’t enjoy. Solved by actively down-voting songs I wouldn’t be excited to hear again.
-Flossing my teeth is mildly annoying and wrapping dental floss around my fingers would tend to reduce circulation a perturbing amount. Solved by buying dental floss picks.
Also tangentially, something similar to this also happened to me with graduate school. For a long time, I saw graduate school as the logical extension of me being a person interested in and good at computational research. Turned out that my day-to-day enjoyment of professional work is basically identical to my enjoyment of research, except paying more.