economics | Wing's World

This is going to be one of those participatory posts. Ready? Show of hands: who’s familiar with the term Opportunity Cost?

That’s a term I had to learn about 35 years ago, when I took my first public school teaching job, in North Carolina. I was ~~sentenced to~~ given five sections of the same class: 9th Grade ELP, or Economic, Legal and Political Systems. Thanks to my undergrad classwork, I was pretty up on the Legal & Political part, but Economics? I studied hard to keep a step ahead of those kids.

And I learned about opportunity cost, a.k.a. “the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.” (Thanks, Oxford Dictionary Online.)

In other words: you do one thing; what you don’t do = opportunity cost.

Get up to see the sunrise? Your o.c. is sleep. Sleep in? Your o.c. is…wait for it…sunrise! But also a TON of other early-morning things.

Obviously, for every action, there are a LOT MORE o.c.’s. So you don’t want to let them get the upper hand, right?

The trick is to recognize the opportunity costs, give ’em a friendly nod…and keep doing what you’re doing. That way they can’t blindside you with their secret weapon, regret.

The other day while walking in my Big Backyard, part of the San Juan National Monument, I came upon this ~~particularly beastly~~ lovely flower arrangement:

Bull thistle, seed pods popping. Invasive as hell. I vaguely recalled writing a blog post about my personal war with these devils about a decade ago. Back then, I was actually optimistic about ridding this stretch of public lands from thistles by my own sheer persistence.

So what happened? Opportunity cost.

Choose to save your back & knees by withdrawing from the Thistle Wars? The opportunity cost is living with thistles.

The more I think about it, the more I see opportunity cost at work in my life. Move across the country for the beauty of the Pacific Northwest?

Fine–but your o.c. is a full (expensive) day’s travel away from your folks.

And Dad may still rack up the miles on his e-trike, but he’s not riding to Washington State.

For that matter: move onto an ISLAND? OK…but you better be ready to give up HOURS, waiting in ferry lines.

Because this really isn’t a commuting option.

I chose to devote time (and money) to pursuing an MFA in fiction, so I can write a better novel…

…but my songwriting Muse has taken these past two years to decide to visit some other songwriter. THAT was one o.c. I hadn’t considered.

[not pictured: my songwriting Muse. “Hmph. I can tell when I’m not wanted.”]

On that music theme: I only get to play with friends who are willing to be informal & flexible, rather than join an ongoing band…

…because I leave the island WAY too often, for places like this:

(to choose a recent, random example–the Chiricahua National Monument in AZ)

I’ve had to give up Spanish lessons because of (pick one): bakery work/neighborly commitments/ political phone-banking/spending down time with The Mate

OK, that last one: always worth it! No cost!

Choosing not to plant an organized garden gives me extra time, and saves my back…and my o.c. is a Kale Forest (vale of kale) masquerading as a garden.

Getting exercise means I’m always moving around this beautiful corner of the world at TOP SPEED…which means I’m not LINGERING.

That last one really caught my attention. So the other day, I took my journal, my lumbar support pillow, and a peach with me out to the Point, and we LINGERED.

What did I journal about? Opportunity cost. I duly noted a long list of things I haven’t been doing, making, accomplishing or experiencing lately, because of all the other things I’ve been doing, etc. I read the list. I thanked it. I whispered promises to a couple of the o.c.’s on there that I might be back at a later time, so don’t give up on me.

And on we go. No regrets. (Or at least none that I feel like sharing in a blog. 🙂 )

Just keep looking at the view…don’t give that o.c. any power!

So here comes the participatory part again. What are some of the opportunity costs you’re currently noticing in your life? How about acknowledging them here? Then wave ’em adieu.

I’m looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. One of my colleagues spent the weekend at a wedding in Seattle, and I want to hear all about it.

Seattle’s not far from here: forty-minute ferry ride, ninety-minute drive. But for this colleague, spending a night in Seattle is equivalent to me flying across the country. Except that it’s maybe a bigger deal.

Teachers tend to be middle class folks. During all my years of teaching, I could generally expect to hear from my peers about their holiday trips to Hawaii or Disneyland, or to family back east. Worth photo-sharing, but hardly the trip of a lifetime.

But in my island bakery? Few as they are, my colleagues now span a startlingly large income range, from going on assistance in the winter when the bakery closes, to heading off for a college career already paid for by family money, and everything in between.

It makes for interesting conversations.

Feel like complaining because two different friends have scheduled a wedding and a memorial service on the same weekend in two different states? Want to vent about the lack of legroom on airplanes these days?

Does the term “first world problems” mean anything to you?

(orig. image courtesy Pinterest)

When I hear about people’s problems, I always want to try to help, try to brainstorm solutions. But what’s the solution to a crappy landlord? What’s the solution to lack of full-time work with benefits in a small island community, or to crippling student loans preventing further education? Those are a little beyond me.

This post isn’t intended as a complaint. It’s more of a observation: I don’t think very many of us work many hours with folks whose financial context is vastly different from our own, at either end of the scale. And a question: when we do, how is it?

Me–I like it. Even when I can’t solve my colleagues’ problems. I still get a lot out of listening. And we work harder to come up with topics we can all share in, like family, or movies, or books. Or our customers. 🙂

How about you? Unless you work from home, are your co-workers more of less in your economic sphere, or not? How does that feel?