1/ Debt and optionality in life (not a financial thread) 👇 
2/ Whenever we take a decision which favors short-term outcome for long-term one, we incur a life debt; it will be paid in future happiness, in future personal development or in future success.
3/ A particular form of debt is selling optionality.
Whenever I sell an option, I get a fixed small amount of instant value, foregoing the chance for profiting from future opportunities.
Adulthood, as generally conceived by most people, is about selling life options.
Whenever I sell an option, I get a fixed small amount of instant value, foregoing the chance for profiting from future opportunities.
Adulthood, as generally conceived by most people, is about selling life options.
4/ Adulthood is, for example, about getting a steady job (selling an option on future job or life opportunities in exchange for a small fixed revenue) and about buying a house (foregoing future life opportunities such as moving to another city in exchange for a small discount).
5/ Regarding financial options, selling an option means betting on future stability. If one sells an option, he benefits from the world staying as stable as possible.
The same is true for life options.
The same is true for life options.
6/ After someone sells his life options (gets a stable job, buys a house, marries), he has to wish for stability (otherwise his choices might turn wrong or opportunities he can’t grab might appear, and he’ll lose possible gains others might take instead).
7/ Selling their life options makes people wish for things to stay as they are.
Hence the general correlation with age or material success with conservatism.
Hence the general correlation with age or material success with conservatism.
8/ The only constant in life is change, they say.
If this is true (and it is), selling a life option means incurring a life debt (because change will eventually come).
If this is true (and it is), selling a life option means incurring a life debt (because change will eventually come).
9/ (There is another point to consider: marriage, for example, consists in both selling a life option (the option to have other partners), and buying one (the option to have kids, or a deeper relationship). The same applies to similar examples.)
10/ Like financial debt, life debt is not always negative; there are situations when it makes sense to incur into debt: if we believe that the amount we borrow *will produce value* faster than the interest rate and if we believe that value produced > value of missed opportunities
11/ In other words, life debt and selling life options are valid courses of action only if the instant gains are used to buy production capacity to produce more life value in the future (eg I work my ass for a limited amount of time to set myself for better, quieter times).
12/ Most people incur in bad life debt or take bad decisions because they reject the dynamic nature of the world.
13/ Conclusions:
* Selling life options brings conservatism
* Selling life options is like incurring a debt, for we get instant value but forfeit future value when assumptions will change (and chances are they will)
* Life debt only makes sense when it creates production capacity
* Selling life options brings conservatism
* Selling life options is like incurring a debt, for we get instant value but forfeit future value when assumptions will change (and chances are they will)
* Life debt only makes sense when it creates production capacity
