12 ms·

"2 to 6 months" It would be interesting to know how this turns out on the long run. I also think that in real life, these decisions are not always about you a

"2 to 6 months" It would be interesting to know how this turns out on the long run. I also think that in real life, these decisions are not always about you alone.

jschwartzi 8y ago
How so? Ultimately the only thing you are owed by anyone else in the world is the right to walk away. I don't owe my SO a relationship and she doesn't owe me one. We're in it because we want to be. It's the same thing at work, where my boss pays me because he wants me to work for him, and I want to work for him because he pays me and he's a good boss. He doesn't owe me a job and I don't owe him work beyond what he's already paid me for. So I don't see how these decisions are about anyone but me.
- piotrkaminski 8y ago
  I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you don't have (young) kids.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jschwartzi 8y ago
    You can walk away from a spouse without walking away from your kids. That's pretty much what my parents did. My dad and my mom were divorced and basically never spoke to each other or interacted. But they were both involved in our lives in different ways.
    - XorNot 8y ago
      Conversely divorce-rates tend to spike once the youngest child graduates high-school (certainly did for my year group). There is a fair bit of "staying together for the kids" which happens it seems.
noobermin 8y ago
During my graduate career, I got close to quitting a life of hard lonely work and moving to SV to join the grind over there. Sounds like the thing they advocate right? Well I didn't, and now I can put PhD next to my name, I make a comfortable salary, and am the happiest I've ever been. In my early twenties, frustratingly surrounded by many hot girls, especially ones who showed interest in me, I considered breaking up with my girlfriend (whom which I was in a long distance relationship, which added pressure) at the time to experience more. I mean, I won't be 24 forever. Love is great, but experience is a part of life too, right? Well, I stuck with her. I've traveled around the world with her and we're eventually planning for marriage once I can permanently move to be with her. I am the happiest I've ever been. BTW, finding out that staying in both cases would end up being the right decision took a while, it's really on looking back years later that I realize which decisions were right or wrong. One of the things I think I can actually attribute to wisdom that can come with age is this idea: you know only in the short term what you want, what you like to eat, what kind of hobbies you like, etc., but you don't really know what you fundamentally or deeply want in terms of career, lifestyle, etc. You really don't, so second guessing yourself isn't something like "falling short" because the default should be super sure of what you want. It just means you're not sure.
- barrkel 8y ago
  You don't know the counterfactual. You're making conclusions based on only having one branch of history. The interesting thing about studies in the article is they give us a probabilistic view of the counterfactual. Maybe you would have been even happier on the other path. Who knows? (I find it interesting that proposal is worth over -5 happiness points after six months, in the table in the article.)
  - regularfry 8y ago
    Proposal being -5 is fascinating. What's equally intriguing is that "Should I dye my hair" is dramatically more positive than "Should I have a child". Mind you, perhaps they should have checked in on that one at the 1-year mark.
  - noobermin 8y ago

"2 to 6 months" It would be interesting to know how this turns out on the long run. I also think that in real life, these decisions are not always about you alone.

jschwartzi 8y ago

How so? Ultimately the only thing you are owed by anyone else in the world is the right to walk away. I don't owe my SO a relationship and she doesn't owe me one. We're in it because we want to be. It's the same thing at work, where my boss pays me because he wants me to work for him, and I want to work for him because he pays me and he's a good boss. He doesn't owe me a job and I don't owe him work beyond what he's already paid me for. So I don't see how these decisions are about anyone but me.

piotrkaminski 8y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you don't have (young) kids.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- jschwartzi 8y ago
  You can walk away from a spouse without walking away from your kids. That's pretty much what my parents did. My dad and my mom were divorced and basically never spoke to each other or interacted. But they were both involved in our lives in different ways.
  - XorNot 8y ago
    Conversely divorce-rates tend to spike once the youngest child graduates high-school (certainly did for my year group). There is a fair bit of "staying together for the kids" which happens it seems.

noobermin 8y ago

During my graduate career, I got close to quitting a life of hard lonely work and moving to SV to join the grind over there. Sounds like the thing they advocate right? Well I didn't, and now I can put PhD next to my name, I make a comfortable salary, and am the happiest I've ever been. In my early twenties, frustratingly surrounded by many hot girls, especially ones who showed interest in me, I considered breaking up with my girlfriend (whom which I was in a long distance relationship, which added pressure) at the time to experience more. I mean, I won't be 24 forever. Love is great, but experience is a part of life too, right? Well, I stuck with her. I've traveled around the world with her and we're eventually planning for marriage once I can permanently move to be with her. I am the happiest I've ever been. BTW, finding out that staying in both cases would end up being the right decision took a while, it's really on looking back years later that I realize which decisions were right or wrong. One of the things I think I can actually attribute to wisdom that can come with age is this idea: you know only in the short term what you want, what you like to eat, what kind of hobbies you like, etc., but you don't really know what you fundamentally or deeply want in terms of career, lifestyle, etc. You really don't, so second guessing yourself isn't something like "falling short" because the default should be super sure of what you want. It just means you're not sure.

barrkel 8y ago
You don't know the counterfactual. You're making conclusions based on only having one branch of history. The interesting thing about studies in the article is they give us a probabilistic view of the counterfactual. Maybe you would have been even happier on the other path. Who knows? (I find it interesting that proposal is worth over -5 happiness points after six months, in the table in the article.)
- regularfry 8y ago
  Proposal being -5 is fascinating. What's equally intriguing is that "Should I dye my hair" is dramatically more positive than "Should I have a child". Mind you, perhaps they should have checked in on that one at the 1-year mark.
- noobermin 8y ago