Choices and Costs

Trying to recall, it may have been Friday.

My online work meetings had just wrapped up, and I was transitioning my headspace from work emails and meeting notes to what am I was going to do with the boys for ‘guy time’ (the moniker the boys and I created for our time, when Melissa has a well-deserved night out with her college girlfriends).

So the thoughts in my head were a blend of inventorying tasks to prepare for a project’s sprint 2 start on Monday, scheduling some weekend time to prepare user story and task assignments, and deciding what to make for dinner that would be sufficiently caveman-ish to fit in with the plans for the evening.

“Dad, are you going to write this weekend?”

It was Tristan. As usual, when my head is lost in its own thoughts, it takes a few moments to shake myself out of it and bring myself to the present.

“Sure” I replied. “Are you going to write?”

“I want to. What are you going to write about?”

Oh man, I don’t know. In truth, there are usually a couple of ideas … seedlings of thought, that pop up in my head and put away in my back pocket, until they develop enough in substance in my thoughts, that I’ll want to express it … that I’ll need to express it. But the weekend just started, and I haven’t had the headspace to grow anything of substance as of yet.

So I pick one of those seedlings, and I try to grow it with him, in a conversation.

“Maybe I’ll write about opportunity costs”.

Last weekend, Tristan wrote a piece called “The World We Crave”, which was an observation on the world we want to create versus the one that we have. My friend Raul Sala read his piece and posted a response about ‘opportunity costs’ referring to an essay by Mark Manson called ‘No, You Can’t Have It All’.

Mark Mason discussed the idea that we don’t have enough time to build the perfect career, and be devoted to our families, and be everything we want to be. There are opportunity costs in making those choices. If you choose to devote your time to our business or your career, then you will be giving up focus and time that could have been spent on family. You concentrate on your relationship with your significant other, or your kids, then maybe you sacrifice the dream career trajectory, or it takes longer. There are opportunity costs in those choices.

In talking to Tristan, I was saying that we could take that idea further.

That opportunity costs exist not only in the life choices that we make, but also in the daily choices that we make, in what we choose to focus on every day. In the limited time that I have when I’m not thinking about work, where is my head? In a world of ideas literally available at our fingertips, through social media feeds and ‘news’ broadcasts, where do we spend the time in our own minds? And the point crystallized for me this morning, when I heard Tristan’s words in my mind: “What are you going to write about?”

As I’m apt to do in the mornings, I picked up my phone this morning and scrolled through social media, looking at what my family and friends have done this weekend, perusing through family events, pics of my friends gatherings while wearing face masks, making stops at some video clips of puppies and UFC fights, and of course the constant spin of political posts, from both sides of the political continuum, shared by those I follow on social media. And my reaction is usually the same, either disappointment, disbelief, angst, anger … or a mixture of all of them. All the easy reactions.

As a result, when I was thinking about what to write about this morning, I played with the idea of writing about politics. About the unbelievable current events, and how in the entire history of the world, they aren’t really that unbelievable. That the trends we see are unfortunately not so uncommon.

But, stop … opportunity costs. Spending my time in the negative aspects of the world, that is time not spent on something potentially more … rewarding. More positive. Not to say that those other conversations are not important, or should be discussed. But this morning, and every morning, I have a choice. I could write about family, about growth. I could share a memory about ‘guy time’, or about my conversations with the boys. I could share stories of what connects us rather than what drives us apart. Opportunity costs.

And I have that choice every day. We all do. Where to spend our mental currency, our temporal resources. Where to dwell, where to reflect. To share an idea that perpetuates the divide, or connects the masses.

Choices, and opportunity costs.

So there you have it. I realize after re-reading this that I didn’t even write about anything positive. I just wrote about the choice to do so. So let me leave you with these parting items.

1. I love that ideas flow from one person to another, in different meaningful ways. Last week, a conversation with Tristan turned into a different take on his blog, which prompted a response from a friend and fellow philosophizer, which turned into this. This sharing and transformation of ideas is one of the main reasons I share what I write.

2. I love that I have conversations with my boys at this level, and that they seek it out. Not only because it’s something that I get to connect with them about, but I love that they are thinking about the world at this depth, and that Melis and I get to have a view of it.

3. At Friday night’s ‘guy time’, as appropriate for their age and the nature of the evening, Reese, Tristan and I ate steaks and spent an hour ranking the ‘hotness’ of each of the female super-heroes in the Marvel movies. How awesome is that. And when the conversation extended beyond the MCU, we agreed that Melissa was more beautiful than any of them.

Peace and love everyone. Have a good weekend.