Feeling Reflective...

[stevieannie]

No, I've not got one of those greeny-yellow high-visibility jackets on, thankyou.

One of the finance blog groups that I read has had a topic theme recently to do with the best and worst financial decisions you've ever made. It made me think. More to the point, it made me think about what I actually considered to be a choice and what I thought was a "done-deal" with only one route of action.

It ties in nicely to an old post of Keris' which referred to the fact that everyone always has a choice as to their actions. The alternative might be *horrible*, but there's always a choice, so the excuse, "I had to do such-and-such" really shouldn't wash - you don't *have* to do anything. You choose to.

My navel-gazing on the best and worst financial decisions that I've ever made is here by the way, and I would be really interested to know what your own thoughts on the subject are...

Comments

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

The alternative might be *horrible*, but there's always a choice, so the excuse, "I had to do such-and-such" really shouldn't wash - you don't *have* to do anything. You choose to.

I'm not sure I buy that. If the alternative is sufficiently horrible that it would, for example, make you mentally ill - a problem I happen to have with choosing to do things like work in office jobs - then you don't really have a choice. And there's a big, big grey area around choices where the alternative is not impossible, but is so totally unsuitable for the person you are and the abilities you have that you know it would make your life gratingly unpleasant to have to do it.

I think if you're going to take that attitude, you have to temper it with being very self-aware and wise about your own needs and longer-term happiness.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

You still do have the choice. Work in the office and get ill, or do something else. Lots of people do indeed make the choice to stay in jobs which make them ill or even suicidal, because it seems to them that the alternatives are worse. What you are actually saying is "I have no other alternatives which are acceptable to me", which is a subjective judgement and is itself a choice. Yes, it means being self-aware and taking responsibility for your own actions. It doesn't by itself confer or require any more wisdom about your needs and long term happiness, though, because there is still the choice to be ignorant and not to plan ahead (the Dice Man, who lived his life by delegating all choices to random events from dice throws, still made the choice to live that way and chose each time to actually do what the dice said).

True, "you always have a choice" is not absolutely true (all generalisations are false!). If you are already too deranged to consider alternatives, or on a physical level (like someone hitting your knee and causing the leg to jerk), then you can claim that there was no choice. And it still allows for mistakes, I can still say "I didn't mean to hit the delete key" because my finger slipped. But in almost all normal cases when a person says "I didn't have a choice" what they really mean is "I don't want to accept responsibility for my action". Sometimes they will even say it while also telling about the choices available ("I had no choice, I had to hit him or I'd have looked like a coward").

Note that nothing says that you will necessarily make a wise or informed choice out of the alternatives. People will pick what they think at the time is the 'best' (or 'least bad') choice, but that evaluation may well not be rational (to others or in hindsight), and what looks like a good choice in the short term may have bad effects in the long term. You can choose actions but not always the consequences of those actions.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

What you are actually saying is

Don't you dare tell me what I'm saying.

Essentially, your thesis is that people - me included, and I would like to point out that I am very definitely choosing to take that personally, since it serves to underline your crashing insensitivity - are fundamentally lazy, selfish and don't want to take responsibility for themselves.

My very strong suggestion to you is that you come over to Cambridge and find out what my life is like when I try to work in an office. Then, and only then, you get to tell me what my choices are and what my level of personal responsibility for my actions is.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

I definitely don't buy it. It's one of those cracker-barrel Heinlein simplifications like "altruism does not exist" or "having to be grateful is eeeevil" or "the universe was created to move DNA around." There is a level on which it is true, as Keris explains below, but that leaves out so much important stuff that its truth as regards the decision-making process is useless.

Of course, that's only what I choose to believe.

[shannachie.livejournal.com]

I really dOn't know what might be the best financial decision I ever made.

I know that one decision certainly was wrong - but who knows. Right after my M.A. I had a temp job at a tiny little foreign tech company doing "menial" stuff for the one-and-a-half-people marketing department. They offerend me an on-job training and an entry into the marketing of that company. I turned the offer down because I shunned the quarrel with my parents who expected me to become a teacher since that was what I had originally planned and had studied for. And an obscure job at an obscure little firm that rented one single floor in an office building 40 km outside Munich was just nothing to write home about - even if I might have made my way up quickly, since it was a short way and they liked me.
But after all, who had ever heard Of NOKIA?

[tattercoats.livejournal.com]

It's true that with hindsight, some actions and decisions look like mistakes. However, I tend to primarily consider what the reasons were that led to the choice. Usually, these are compelling, and very seldom can one actually look back to a time when one was balanced between choices so equal in their appeal (or lack of it) that chance could be said to have dictated the way one eventually went.

In other words, were I taken back in time to the occasion of one of my worst mistakes, then, provided I only had available precisely the data and the resources I had the first time round - I'd do the same thing again.

So I don't regret much. I do, however, try to learn from my mistakes.

[ex-lark-asc.livejournal.com]

I've only ever made one mistake that I regret, because it's the only one I think I could have avoided with a bit more thought and care. Of course at the time it actually happened, I was suffering from undiagnosed and untreated depression, so whether or not I would have been *capable* of that kind of thought and care is a moot point - so I don't blame myself unduly. No, most of the things I regret are things other people have done; those that have had serious knock-on effects on my own life. As far as my own actions go I very much take your attitude of trying to learn rather than stewing over it.

very seldom can one actually look back to a time when one was balanced between choices so equal in their appeal (or lack of it) that chance could be said to have dictated the way one eventually went.

Mmmm. Chance has very little to do with it when you're dealing with something as complex as a human being; culture is *such* a powerful force in the human mind that you can't just discount it and take the nerdy "technically there is *always* a choice" view. I'm a prime example: for a lot of my life, when faced with choices I chose the option I'd been brought up to believe was the Right Thing - whether or not it was appealing, and whether or not it was obviously dangerous to my sanity. The problem, of course, was that the Right Thing I was brought up to believe in didn't include any reference to maintaining my long-term ability to function as a human being. I've got two degrees and counsellors ask me if I've ever considered training as one myself, so I'm a long, long way from stupid or lacking in insight; and yet in spite of that, acculturation got me into a situation where I effectively did not have the freedom to make rational choices about my own life. It's a mess I got myself out of in the end, but I did that at the cost of thousands of pounds' worth of debt, two years of utter misery, my entire circle of friends, my career prospects, and breaking the heart of someone who did not deserve to be hurt. My whole life as it was then, basically. If I hadn't been brought up with such a fine disregard for my own histrionics (translation: feelings), I'd probably have been suicidal at some point during that. As it is, I'm only stable at the very best of times, and the only reason I'm sitting here under a dry roof with a computer, an Internet connection and no need for anything other than very mild medication is the bottomless goodwill of my partner.

That is why I disagree with people who say you're never out of options. I think they are entirely failing to grasp the scale and subtlety of the ways society gets its claws into you, and the lasting nature of the effects that "just gritting your teeth and choosing properly" can have.

[(Anonymous)]

Best financial decision. Accepting voluntary redudancy offer at Royal Mail. I had two very good trips to Japan, Japanese lessons which let me to this Japanese dating website which introduced me let me to meet Shinobu to whom I am now married too.

Worst financial decision. Getting married! I haven't been able to buy a Xbox360, halo3 or other console/games because we need to save money for house/car/etc. etc.
The good news is that getting married was the best decision in my life.

Oops, posted twice. Worst LJ Decision...

[stealthgoth.livejournal.com]

Best financial decision. Accepting voluntary redudancy offer at Royal Mail. Got a better job/salary/job prospect with my current employee. I had two very good trips to Japan, Japanese lessons which let me to this Japanese dating website which introduced me let me to meet Shinobu to whom I am now married too.

Worst financial decision. Getting married! I haven't been able to buy a Xbox360, halo3 or other console/games because we need to save money for house/car/etc. etc.
The good news is that getting married was the best decision in my life.