Pain

by LCDWIN01 on Jan 29, 2021 at 08:48 COVID, Opinion, Political

Consequences are a necessary component of poor decision-making. This applies to nearly every decision someone makes.  The more important the decision, the more pain is likely felt in deciding incorrectly.  Choosing poor fashion options may only result in minor ridicule or embarrassment; partying excessively the night before a big test may lead to poor performance on said test; blowing rent money at the casino may result in eviction from living spaces.  Lazy or poor thinking nearly always leads to adverse consequences.  Feeling the pain is motivation to improve future decision-making.  Note that not all pain is the result of bad decisions—many bad things are unavoidable.  Disease, mental and physical, is often random or hereditary.  Many car wrecks are the fault of OTHER folks’ mistakes, not the injured party.  Most domestic issues are not due to a choice—no one chooses their abusive parent or relative.  People do not willingly opt to be the victim of criminality.  But let’s focus on the results-oriented problems, those that are the accumulation of choices made.

Some pain is financial, some personal, some a bit more indirect—like the decision to vote or not, or whom to vote for.  As an example, some folks have bemoaned the decisions made by mayors or Governors of respective States, as responses to handle the COVID-19 pandemic; others are greatly impacted by the decisions made by those same mayors and Governors regarding actions taken during the George Floyd protests and riots.  Everything from excessive (in my opinion) lock-downs, to preventing church and funeral services, to giving stand-down orders to law enforcement during those protests and riots.  Those that agree with the decisions made have elected the leadership they wanted.  But those unhappy with the policies enacted?  Either they did not vote, or didn’t get enough voting volume in their respective locales to get a different leader.  Some may have been blind-sided by those elected, not knowing or understanding the methodology of the decision-maker until it was too late.  If they are in a constant voting minority, they may need to make the bigger decision to live elsewhere, where decisions are made much more in alignment with their own priorities.  Those that feel that where they live is far more important than whom they elect, have made their decision, and are forced to live with those consequences.

Likewise, many businesses now have choices to make:  do they stay in cities that will knowingly pull back police protection in riot conditions, endangering their business, property, customers, and employees?  Do they remain in areas that willingly decrease or re-allocate police budgets elsewhere, or even consider disbanding police entirely?  Do they like their city so much, that they will rebuild their looted and damaged businesses, risking their capital again?  Or do they relocate to more business-friendly, law-and-order type communities?

If the results of poor decision-making were NOT impactful (no pain), we wouldn’t care what we decided, nor would we put more effort into future decisions, hoping for better outcomes.  Learning from bad choices may be painful, but it is the pain that makes us do better next time.  We hope.  Some go by the old adage: “I never make the same mistake twice—I do it SEVERAL times, just to make sure!”

Update: I hear many folks bemoan ‘buyer’s remorse’–that bad feeling when you regret making a purchase, but too late to return the item. This is normally associated with home or car buying, but this premise extends to nearly all non-essential purchases. You hope to learn, over time and with more experience, to minimize this rotten feeling. But lately, I’ve applied this necessary pain to higher education.
College is a big deal. It is expensive, risky, and potentially life-changing, both good and bad. A typical college degree can cost as much as a house. Choice of school, degree program, timeframe, and payment methods are HUGE decisions. Choose poorly, and you can be in a deep financial hole for most of your adult life; choose well, and your potential for increased earnings and lifestyle choices is astounding. But what if college was ‘free’ to the student? What if there was no financial ‘pain’ for poor decision-making? The obvious answer: not enough thought and planning into the first choice, and no reason not to repeat poor choices, since it’s ‘free’. If you think we have quite a few holders of worthless degrees now, make it free–a true growth market!

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2021 at 08:48 and is filed under COVID, Opinion, Political. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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