Choose your own adventure

Meeting with my friend in Helsinki was great and it was a reminder that life is a series of events that each has a branching number of options from it. These are of course affected by who is doing the choosing, meaning that due to differences in experience and personality. not every option is available to every person or, the way they act upon options will vary, at times, greatly.

People like to simplify (especially when jealous) and imagine that if only they had that opportunity or if only they got that lucky break, they too would be successful. If only... It doesn't work that way as to be able to do make the same choices at the same time as another person, one must be that exact person which is of course not possible.

What happens is that even if presented an identical situation with a branching set of options, each person will make a different choice and even if slightly divergent, leads to a slightly different position that has a different set of branching options from the other. In time, these potentially small divergences can lead to some very large differences in position and therefore experience.

As we caught up quickly on the distant past and then the more recent past. He was saying about his job and he knows it isn't going to last as they are laying-off another 10,000 people and he feels that every year or two he is fighting for his life to hold on. He said, "Eventually, I am going to lose". He inquired what I have been up to.

I asked if he remembered that link I sent him (and another friend) last year in a chat; Steem. He did. I had sent this back in early March or so and was trying to tell them how they could potentially have a lot of fun as it suited both their personalities in different ways plus, they might even want to buy-in a little. Remember those days? No? 7 cent Steem. The other friend (a geek) said that it was likely a scam and that was the last we really spoke about it.

So, today I said well, I have my little consultancy but, what I really enjoy doing is blogging on Steem. He was a little bit surprised I think but listened as I told and showed him a little bit more of what is going on and how things are changing, crypto-markets in general, state of the world etc and , he understood.

What would have happened if instead of dismissing the non-geek, he chose to do a little more research himself? You see, my geek friend is a smart guy but has strong opinions and perspectives on life and often does not see various aspects that my friend would notice and count as important. My friend outsourced the decision to look into Steem to a person who wouldn't look at it in the same way as he would, to someone largely oblivious to certain societal situations. This decision put him on a branch that he wouldn't have necessarily chosen if he had done the work himself.

For this guy, he would have comfortably been ably to put a couple of thousand in but let's say he put 1000 in at that time. That would have been ~14000 Steem which just going on market prices would be 18,000 now and 100,000 at the all time high. Once you factor in posting, voting, curation, delegation and other possibilities that SP allows, he would be quite happy even at these prices. Being 1800% up in an investment in a year is incredible at the all time high it was 10,000% up.

I wonder what he would have learned along the way? This isn't just about the financial perspectives. I was telling him about how decentralization works, immutability, global value transfers minus the middlemen, censorship concerns on platforms and all of the other issues that he already understands as challenges and opportunities and, he understood.

Did he make a mistake? Well, of course! But, that is my opinion only and nothing is set in stone. He could have lost his 1000 and, the concerns of scam and gaming the system that my friend spoke about, does happen here. However, he couldn't see or comprehend all the other good things that happen here also or, would happen here in the following year and beyond.

The thing is that when it comes to choosing our paths, when we outsource decision making to others they are going to choose what is best for them based on what they know. And this means that their view which might be suitable for them might not be suitable for another.

The interesting thing is that the geek friend got in on the ground floor of a startup that now turns over 600 million annually. He is set for life. His advice however might have cost my friend a chance to do something similar, maybe not on the same scale, maybe higher. But, it would have likely given him enough knowledge and a kick start to being in a position to be able to at the very least, make the fear of losing a fight for his life a lot less of an issue.

Have you ever thought how many of your own decisions you actually outsource to others? People who will always make decisions based on their experience and beliefs. Spend some time and really think about it as you might be surprised that the position you hold now is a series of branching events createdon a whole range of decisions that you never actually actively made but instead, went along with the recommendations of others or, took the default option.

The adventure or lack thereof might not be much of your own choice at all. So, who's life are we living if we outsource our decisions? Friends, family, governments, advertisers, media....

Who are we?

Steem has helped me see more clearly and take back a lot of the agency that I was giving up to others because I was unwilling to investigate what was bet for me. It is quite a journey and one filled with pain, suffering and responsibility but, it is my own life I live. Once my friend gets home, he is going to message me and start researching what this is really all about and, what it means to his life.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]