Opportunity Cost

So I haven't posted a lot lately, because I just haven't had much to say.  Those who know me really well are stunned into silence right now.  It wasn't really that I didn't have much to say, it really was that I couldn't figure out how to coalesce those thoughts into a coherent written post.

Then this morning, my sister-in-law posted a link to an article about a phenomenon called FOMO, or Fear of Missing Out.   I never knew such a thing existed, and now reading that one article has stoked me for numerous blog postings.  Thanks, Kath.

I'll get to the FOMO thing in a later blog, but it triggered a thought that was a gift from one of the great leaders I worked for in my career.

This leader, in addition to asking us to think about budget and human resource management when prioritizing work, asked us to think about opportunity cost.  Here is the simple explanation of opportunity cost.  Everything you decide to do removes the opportunity to do something else.  I can sleep late, or I can write my blog early in the morning.  I can go on vacation, but I will miss an event in New Orleans while I am gone. I can decide to write a book, but I will have less time for something else.  I think you all get the concept now.

Since I learned to think in terms of opportunity cost, it has helped me tremendously.  When I decide how to spend my time, it is with full acknowledgement that I am not doing something else with that time.  Don't get me wrong, I still waste time, but I decide I want to take the opportunity to waste time.

This concept of opportunity cost has really helped me focus and prioritize.  I spend a lot of time walking, which gives me the opportunity to spend a lot of time thinking.  I don't think there is anything that I value more.  This sometimes takes the opportunity to write my book, or my blog, but I'm good with that, because the walking feeds my soul most of all.

Sometimes, I just sit on the couch and pet my dogs.  The opportunity cost for that is that my house is never as clean as I want it to be, and I don't call my friends as often as I feel like I should, but my dogs love me so unconditionally, and ask for so little, the opportunity cost is well worth it.

I retired early to have the opportunity to spend more time with my husband.  The opportunity cost was a pretty good salary, but we have enough, so the opportunity cost was worth it.  I can only make memories for a fixed amount of time, which is an unknown variable.  No amount of money was worth losing the opportunity to make those memories.

Life will always be a series of compromises, of giving something up to get something else.  Thinking in terms of opportunity cost has given me an illusion of control.  By thinking about what I am giving up to be doing what I am doing, I pretend I have more control than I do.

It also helps me avoid regrets, and that I will talk about in a future blog post about having a deliberate life.

So, as you go about your tomorrows, think about the opportunity cost for how you decide to spend your time.   For most of us, many hours have to be spent working, but we are buying the opportunity for other activities with that investment of time.  For the lucky ones, we actually get to feel good about the contribution we make in our working hours, a double bonus.

I've posted before about how little control we have over our lives.  Thinking in terms of opportunity cost helps preserve the illusion of control, but not in a bad way.

It somewhat explains why I never experience FOMO, but we'll discuss that in a future post.  I hope that all reading take the time to think about the opportunity costs of your decisions for how to spend your time, and learn to feel happy about the choices you are making.