One of the few definitions that ever stuck in my head from my junior high school Commerce classes was the concept of Opportunity Cost. - "The cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action. Put another way, the benefits you could have received by taking an alternative action."

Opportunity cost doesn't have to be assessed in monetary terms, but rather can be assessed in terms of anything that is of value to the person or persons doing the assessing. I suppose you could just call it 'making a decision between 2 things', but it is getting to the point where, on an everyday basis, I get myself so worked up comparing the opportunity costs of way more than two things, or action. Over what I could/should do during the day - with the 'costs' being stuff like boredom, or the likelihood of getting a sore back, or the likelihood of being interrupted, or how hot or dirty I will get doing it... or how much preparation beforehand is required.. (and the list is endless really...) - that I don't do any of it!

That's when I wonder if there is such a thing as Opportunity Cost-itis.. and whether I might have it (and what can I do to get over it..)

A quick google using 'inability to make decisions' led me to Dependent Personality Disorder, which is a bit confronting, and I don't think I quite fit all the criteria....(it's bit scary how many I do, though...). Maybe I should just look up the dictionary under "lazy" and "procrastination" (or just plain 'addiction to the internet'). Actually, every one of those 'tendencies' are probably bound up in it all as well.

But seriously... every day I spend so much time weighing up which of the many household chores (that I hate so much) I should do first, I end up doing none of them, and opting for the easier, more or less decision free option of sitting here. [Then I run out of time to tackle any decent project.. so I may as well sit here and have another coffee till I have to be somewhere that I have actually managed to arrange or commit to.]

I am even doing it today over tackling the bike riding blog posts that my OH is hassling me to complete, rather than posting on here...

Poor Time management skills are quite possibly involved as well. If something is more tedious.. involves more concentration... then I put it off.. and do something easier... and I don't allocate myself appropriate time frames to do certain things. (And in some case then the not-done job just gets bigger and bigger, and requires a bigger time frame to accomplish it in, so I put it off some more, because I don't have the time.. and.... arrghhh.. it's all a vicious circle.

Of OC-itis.

Does that make sense? And if it does... how on earth do I cure myself of it? (And please, please, noone do what my GP once did when I tried to talk once about having trouble with getting housework done.. She started telling me what she did, which of course just made me feel more insecure and useless, because, seriously, if it was as easy as doing what other people say they just get in and do, don't you think I would have done it by now?!!)

Labels: aarrrgghhh, introspection