The Benefits and Cost of Personal Change

I believe it is one of the universal human conditions that we all deal with making decisions that balance the viewed benefits of change with our imagined costs of those changes.

Humans (and maybe a few other species) can imagine possible futures that are better than today, and as a result, we think of changes that we think will make things better (by some measure we choose or accept), and we desire those changes to occur. So why don't we just make all those changes (at least the ones that we believe we have some control over)? Frequently, we don't because of a fear of the possible "cost" associated with the change. Why doesn't someone just go get a better job -- because they might not find one -- or because they can't afford to give up some benefit of the current job -- or because they would lose seniority -- or....

It is rare that anyone can truly know the exact consequences of choosing to do something or choosing not to do that thing. Our existence just isn't set up to allow us to know the future -- we can only use our best experience from the past, our intuition, our logic, and our gut-feel to pick one way or the other and live with it.

Oh, and don't fall into the trap of thinking you just won't decide -- inaction is just as much of a decision as action.

Best of skill and luck predicting the future, and may your benefits always outweigh your costs.

Graffiti

I was walking through our local park today and saw graffiti
marked on the play equipment there, and, as usual, was disgusted at
the fact that people can have so little regard for things that don't
belong to them. Aside from trying to imagine interesting
technological methods of catching and punishing people who do this, I
pondered what the best ways are to teach children to respect the
property of others, and what attitudes and thoughts lead people to
want to put graffiti on things that aren't theirs.

I think that one way to help children learn to respect the
property of others is to give them situations where they work to
create or earn things of their own -- things which have value to them,
and for which they had to put effort or time into to create or earn.
This would at least give them something to consider if they would want
someone else taking or ruining their possession, and so may be able to
use the golden rule to decide not to damage someone else's property.

Of course, I could imagine that if someone had something like
this, and had it forcibly taken away from them or were unable to keep
it for some other reason out of their control, then they could also
give up on the golden rule by saying to themselves that someone else
(or just existence) didn't respect it for them, so why respect it for
anyone else.

I'm really pained by seeing graffiti, as it makes me think someone
has really lost of sense of value in their life, and as a result, is
unable or unwilling to see any reason not to destroy things that
aren't their own.

Regrets

At the end of our lives we are more likely to regret the things we did not do than the things we did...

A very thought-provoking quote I ran across today in a dailyOM.