LIFE - The LIberty to answer 'IF' with your own 'E'

Life is all about choice. Choice is life.

In economics the first lessons are…

1) you have unlimited wants

2) there are limited resources

3) scarcity (of time/life, space/land, and money/wealth) means that you have to make choices

4) the biggest ‘cost’ of a choice is the other forgone choices that you ‘chose not’ — the opportunity cost(s) of each choice. For example: if I go to the beech I cannot at the same time go to the mountain top.

What choices do we make? Billions per day. Most seem like nothing …just like normal living. Eat breakfast? When to eat it? Where to eat it? Who to eat it with? What combination of food? What order?

One of the biggest choice that people make in life is the E

Option 1: Epicurean Experiential Ecstasy — a hedonistic attempt to maximize Enjoyment. Too much of this may create many peak Experiences, but it also will probably greatly and quickly shorten one’s life and lead to many scary episodes.

Option 2: Economically Enduring (life) Expectancy - a healthy attempt to reduce risk in order to increase one’s life Expectancy. This option will seek to conserve resources and stretch life experiences as long as possible while avoiding trauma.

For years heavy drug users said, “I won’t live past 30.” Then, crotch rocket riders wore YOLO - You Only Live Once.

The risk versus reward and/or life experiences versus life expectancy have been on man’s mind since — the Garden of Eden gave humans their first chosen ‘ecstasy life experience’ and took ‘unlimited life expectancy’ away from them. Ecstasy versus Expectancy.

All of this is the Existential crisis that puts the author of Ecclesiastes in such agony.

ChoicE and lifE give us some control in our path of life.

Daoism’s wuwei proposes “actionless action.” Follow the natural ‘dao’ - path.

All good, but still the questions is how much enjoyment/ecstasy and how much expectancy/endurance should we plan for, reach for, and livE for?

Be OPEN. :)

Choice, happiness, and spaghetti sauce - a universal openness to variability