Happy New Year, LWers,
I’m on a 5 month vacation from uni, and don’t have a job. Also, my computer was stolen in October, cutting short my progress in self-education.
Given all this free time I have now, which of these 2 options is better?
Buy a road bicycle & start a possibly physically risky job as a freelance bike-messenger within my city ( I’m that one guy from Nairobi )in order to get out of the house more, then buy a laptop and continue my self-education in programming, computer science, philosophy, etc.
or
buy a laptop, do quick and easy wordpress websites for local businesses, then buy the bike and use it for leisurely riding under no pressure?
I only have money for either one or the other for now, and for some reason I’m hesitating. Maybe it’s because I want to do both. This is important to me, and I’ll appreciate any discussion on this. Thanks.
I don’t have anything specific to offer, but (in theory) hard choices matter less. And if you literally can’t decide between them, you can try flipping a coin to make the decision and as it is in the air, see which way you hope it will end up, and that should be your choice.
Additionally, you can try the reframing technique. Anna describes it here:
When facing a difficult decision, I try to reframe it in a way that will reduce, or at least switch around, the biases that might be influencing it. (Recent example from Anna’s brother: Trying to decide whether to move to Silicon Valley and look for a higher-paying programming job, he tried a reframe to avoid the status quo bias: If he was living in Silicon Valley already, would he accept a $70K pay cut to move to Santa Barbara with his college friends? (Answer: No.))
The example she gives isn’t quite isomorphic to the choice you’re making, but I think the technique still may be worth trying. Imagine you’re currently living out one option but given the chance to take the other—how would you feel about it? And vice versa.
dbaupp, ParagonProtege, thank you both for the links and suggestions. I’m going with the laptop. Anything else I could do (naturally, there’s a lot i want to do) will be kickstarted by the modest, but easy(ish) money I’ll get by doing ~$100 websites, as I upgrade my code-fu for Other Stuff. ;)
I also haven’t cycled actively for years & I’m afraid my unfit body might conk out on me, making me unable to Do The Job once I commit. Cliff scaling is much harder than hill climbing.
From Alicorn’s post , I can easily tell that after I get the laptop, the correct thing to have would be a bike, since I can ease myself back into cycling regularly. It’s also weird how I saw the Other Option (buy bike, work, afford laptop, buy laptop, cut down on bike work as I increase study & laptop work hours) as just as good, even though I know I will feel like a flake if I stop riding after it gets tougher and more tiring, which is more likely than giving up on wordpress. Wordpress isn’t even the only option for devastatingly easy Internet work.
Happy New Year, LWers, I’m on a 5 month vacation from uni, and don’t have a job. Also, my computer was stolen in October, cutting short my progress in self-education.
Given all this free time I have now, which of these 2 options is better?
Buy a road bicycle & start a possibly physically risky job as a freelance bike-messenger within my city ( I’m that one guy from Nairobi )in order to get out of the house more, then buy a laptop and continue my self-education in programming, computer science, philosophy, etc.
or
buy a laptop, do quick and easy wordpress websites for local businesses, then buy the bike and use it for leisurely riding under no pressure? I only have money for either one or the other for now, and for some reason I’m hesitating. Maybe it’s because I want to do both. This is important to me, and I’ll appreciate any discussion on this. Thanks.
I don’t have anything specific to offer, but (in theory) hard choices matter less. And if you literally can’t decide between them, you can try flipping a coin to make the decision and as it is in the air, see which way you hope it will end up, and that should be your choice.
Sorry for the delayed reply.
.
I concur with dbaupp’s suggestion.
Additionally, you can try the reframing technique. Anna describes it here:
The example she gives isn’t quite isomorphic to the choice you’re making, but I think the technique still may be worth trying. Imagine you’re currently living out one option but given the chance to take the other—how would you feel about it? And vice versa.
Likewise, thank you for your suggestion.
dbaupp, ParagonProtege, thank you both for the links and suggestions. I’m going with the laptop. Anything else I could do (naturally, there’s a lot i want to do) will be kickstarted by the modest, but easy(ish) money I’ll get by doing ~$100 websites, as I upgrade my code-fu for Other Stuff. ;)
I also haven’t cycled actively for years & I’m afraid my unfit body might conk out on me, making me unable to Do The Job once I commit. Cliff scaling is much harder than hill climbing.
From Alicorn’s post , I can easily tell that after I get the laptop, the correct thing to have would be a bike, since I can ease myself back into cycling regularly. It’s also weird how I saw the Other Option (buy bike, work, afford laptop, buy laptop, cut down on bike work as I increase study & laptop work hours) as just as good, even though I know I will feel like a flake if I stop riding after it gets tougher and more tiring, which is more likely than giving up on wordpress. Wordpress isn’t even the only option for devastatingly easy Internet work.