negamuhia comments on Open Thread, January 1-15, 2013 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 01 January 2013 06:09AM

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Comment author: negamuhia 01 January 2013 02:15:04PM *  7 points [-]

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.
Comment author: dbaupp 01 January 2013 02:56:29PM 9 points [-]

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.

Comment author: negamuhia 03 January 2013 09:30:08AM *  0 points [-]

Sorry for the delayed reply.

Comment author: [deleted] 01 January 2013 04:37:25PM 5 points [-]

I concur with dbaupp's suggestion.

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.

Comment author: negamuhia 03 January 2013 09:31:21AM 0 points [-]

Likewise, thank you for your suggestion.

Comment author: negamuhia 03 January 2013 09:26:38AM *  1 point [-]

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.

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