I particularly like the notion of standards. I deeply agree that knowing what matters most is quite a valuable thing in life.

The theme of “wait, then choose” made me think of the (poorly named) secretary problem in mathematics. In case that does not ring a bell, it goes like this: suppose you have have N candidates for a job, and that after evaluating each one you must decide whether or not to choose them. Saying “yes” or “no” is always final, and also saying “yes” to a candidate automatically means “no” for all remaining candidates. What’s the optimal strategy? The solution (spoiler alert!!!), if the candidates are interviewed in a random order, is to reject the first 1/e candidates, recording their scores, then say yes to the first one that beats the best score. This represents some trade-off between missing some good oportunity while learning about (or sampling) the space of values. (There’s a wikipedia page about this problem.)

I have been fortunate notice early on things that were quite important to me, as well as things that weren’t. Ad this has paid many dividends. Trimming out stuff that is expensive but not important to me allows me to save around half of my income every month (for the past 9 years), which is REALLY relevant to my goal of settling down and owning a house someday.

It’s also important to accept that some of our standards evolve with time. For instance, not having to relocate (especially move country) has come to have a major weight on my scale in the past year, becoming more important than working at an technically amazing team (note: working with kind people is still high up on the list).

Besides, it’s a joy do discover what makes us tick, what brings us joy, and what we long for.

In any case, I am eager to read more from you. Cheers!

I haven’t been to Antarctica before, but I actually am hoping to go in the next year or two. A reader was joking about it on (a few too many…) posts in the past, probably as a response to me posting less these days.

Thanks for the ideas!!

PS: Just in case it´s usefull information, I didn´t receive the mail for this post either.