On the Hidden Criteria for Choosing a Path

From school onward we’re taught to make decisions on rationality and logic. Numbers, facts, metrics, comparison tables. The more parameters, the more precise the calculation — supposedly. And the more calculated, the safer.

But there are two criteria that are hard to measure mathematically, and so they rarely make it into the pragmatic analysis. Yet they’re often the ones that decide how we live our lives:

— The pleasure of the process.
— The price we pay with our mind and body.

We can choose a career that promises quick bonuses and fast growth, but if every morning the thought of going to the office turns our stomach — how viable is that strategy, really? Sooner or later the body sends its signal: a panic attack, insomnia, a crash in energy, or losing interest in everything.

And the less obvious path — the one where we take pleasure in the process and in becoming ourselves — may promise little money at first. But it gives something else: meaning, energy, the wish to wake up in the morning with bright eyes and a beating heart. And that, over the long run, leads to success and to money too — blooming from the inside, rather than trying to fill an inner emptiness.

It’s the same with things. Renting an apartment can be more logical than buying. But what if the joy of every bolt, every personal detail of a space that’s truly yours, is worth that “irrationality”? What if a great car that’s a liability on paper turns out to be a daily source of comfort, pleasure and beauty?

Or here’s another: the path where we lose time with the people we love and our family for the sake of a career leap. The numbers may say “worth it.” Life will have its say about ten years later, when what we remember won’t be the quarterly reports, but the voices of the people we never spent those evenings with.

Sometimes what looks like a liability suddenly becomes an asset — and the other way around. And the real dividends aren’t only bonuses and income, but the lived minutes of joy, closeness, calm and love. The kind of thing you can never “cash out,” but can lose for good.

Here’s to choosing — without forgetting that our main resource is ourselves and the time of our lives! 😎