Opportunity Cost

There come times in one's life that really allow you to ponder on some of the abstract models that you have been taught in schooling. Indeed, for me, it was the split second decision of either going to the toilet and relieving my busting bowels, or making my train, with the next in 15 minutes.

So the problem has so many other factors that need to be considered as it cannot simply be taken on face value and such are called hidden costs. For example, if i were to take the train option then i would also have to endure almost half an hour of discomfort in trying not to pee my pants, however, taking the toilet option would mean enduring a possible boring 15 minutes which adds onto the traveling time meaning that i miss some important television show or that the time misallocated will cut into sleeping time. Like the butterfly effect, this 15 minutes could result in another 2 hours delay in tasks allocated further in the day. Similarly, if the worst scenario did occur and in some freak accident, say, Dementors were to attack the train, then inevitably my bowels would be emptied onto my pants resulting in not only embarrassment but also littering of sterile human waste on the public transport network and a wasted amount of time taking a premature shower and cleaning the evidence so no-one close gets damaged by the crime. Then again, in the event that the crime is videoed and placed on YouTube, then becoming viral, it could then be translated to thousands in royalties from the loss of a lot of respect points or it could end a different way with only close friends finding out - giving them non-stop ammunition to insult you throughout summer and no money. What if the train i had missed carried "the one" true love of my life or a terrorist bomb or conversely, if i had peed my pants in front of 'the one' (logically it shouldn't matter because 'the one' shouldn't care that i had peed my pants if she is true to the title) or if the train was misengineered so it wouldn't fall off the tracks if it had exactly my weight exactly where i would have stood if i had gotten on?

Quite frankly it's amazing how a small choice can lead to such a variety of scenarios and opportunity cost is not necessarily as simple as one's Economic teacher makes it out to be. At the end of the day all the cost benefit analysis and models can not make the decision, which inevitably will sometimes come down to sheer chance. Luckily i chose to go to the toilet which in a fit of urination, managed to somehow finish quick enough to make both the toilet and train. Sometimes though all the thinking in the world can be wasting the time that could be used to do things instead so take a leap and just try things even if it ends up costing you a peed pair of pants.

Enjoying a much more relaxed summer so bye.