Posted on Jan 21, 2024
Sunday Firesides: There Are No Trade-Off-Free Options
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You want the safety, comfort, and stability of a long-term relationship without a reduction in the excitement attendant to new love.
You want a high-paying job without having to work long hours.
You want to educate your kids at home without them missing out on the social development they’d get at school.
You want to live close to family without having to get involved in their interpersonal drama.
You want a high-powered career without it impinging on your ability to be the best possible parent.
All of our lives, we seek after the holy grails of living: trade-off-free options. Our belief in their existence, though it isn’t typically conscious, nonetheless spoils our contentment, creates a sense of restlessness, and keeps us ever looking for where the grass might be greener, and wholly unspoiled by weeds.
Sometimes we think we spy a trade-off-free option a ways yonder . . . but we are misled by the problems of perspective.
As Benjamin Franklin observed, while we keenly feel all the downsides of our present situation, “we neither see nor feel those of the future.”
And so we change jobs, schools, churches, relationships, or states, thinking we’ve finally found a situation free of trade-offs . . . only to run smack dab into a different set of them.
Making decisions, then, is not about finding an option that doesn’t come with any downsides, but choosing the option that comes with the downsides you’re most willing to accept.
The post Sunday Firesides: There Are No Trade-Off-Free Options appeared first on The Art of Manliness
You want a high-paying job without having to work long hours.
You want to educate your kids at home without them missing out on the social development they’d get at school.
You want to live close to family without having to get involved in their interpersonal drama.
You want a high-powered career without it impinging on your ability to be the best possible parent.
All of our lives, we seek after the holy grails of living: trade-off-free options. Our belief in their existence, though it isn’t typically conscious, nonetheless spoils our contentment, creates a sense of restlessness, and keeps us ever looking for where the grass might be greener, and wholly unspoiled by weeds.
Sometimes we think we spy a trade-off-free option a ways yonder . . . but we are misled by the problems of perspective.
As Benjamin Franklin observed, while we keenly feel all the downsides of our present situation, “we neither see nor feel those of the future.”
And so we change jobs, schools, churches, relationships, or states, thinking we’ve finally found a situation free of trade-offs . . . only to run smack dab into a different set of them.
Making decisions, then, is not about finding an option that doesn’t come with any downsides, but choosing the option that comes with the downsides you’re most willing to accept.
The post Sunday Firesides: There Are No Trade-Off-Free Options appeared first on The Art of Manliness
Sunday Firesides: There Are No Trade-Off-Free Options
Posted from artofmanliness.comPosted in these groups: 
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Inspiration Advice
Posted 4 mo ago
Responses: 2
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Every decision requires weighing the options and the costs....too often we forget that making one choice impacts another...
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Some great truth in that statement.
As a Battalion Commander, I once described (in the middle of a QTB to my Brigade Commander) my role as someone who manages failure. Between mission requirements, training requirements, educational requirements, and other administrative or operational requirements, there were so many commitments on my Soldiers and unit that it was up to me which ones weren't going to be accomplished even though they were 'required'.
Much like the no free trade-off, many times it's a subjective evaluation of which option has the least downsides of what you consider important. The real problem is when you fail to consider the impact of those downsides because you focus on the upsides too much.
As a Battalion Commander, I once described (in the middle of a QTB to my Brigade Commander) my role as someone who manages failure. Between mission requirements, training requirements, educational requirements, and other administrative or operational requirements, there were so many commitments on my Soldiers and unit that it was up to me which ones weren't going to be accomplished even though they were 'required'.
Much like the no free trade-off, many times it's a subjective evaluation of which option has the least downsides of what you consider important. The real problem is when you fail to consider the impact of those downsides because you focus on the upsides too much.
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SPC Elijah J. Henry, MBA
I remember hearing a while back that there was more mandatory annual training (not even directly related to combat, as I understand it) than could possibly be done in a year, even if all the actually important things were disregarded.
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