The Opportunity Cost of LOVE

I stole this from a very close friend of mine (if she reads this, she'll know who she):

"Some women choose to follow men and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you're wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn't love you anymore." - Lady GaGa

As a recent graduate, I've been plagued with huge amounts of anxiety and uncertainty about my future. I have a long-term goal of being an Economist, and like my step mom told me today that is a goal of mine and there several steps to getting there. I've just been so scared that i'll never be able to achieve the next step to getting there (whether it's grad school or becoming a research assistant) and there will be this huge domino effect. I don't want to look in the mirror 10 years from now and realize I'm a huge failure.

I say all of this because with this anxiety and uncertainty, so many other factors come into play, like love. We've all been victim to the opposite sex in one form or another. Whether it is losing yourself by being in a relationship, sacrificing your ideals, who you are, or your priorities for the one who tickles your fancy, or simply playing hookie from work/school because you can't seem to pry yourself away from the beautiful person laying in bed next to you, we've all been there. There may be no one else you'd rather be with than that person, but in the end if that individual wakes up one morning and tells you they don't "love you anymore" or they just "see you as a friend", it all of a sudden doesn't seem worth it does it?

This blog may seen overly sentimental and entirely non-economical, but it has a point. My point is, to me, the opportunity cost of love -at my age and at my stage in my life- is the time and energy I could be putting into achieving my goals. It is the job offers or grad school acceptances I may miss out on because I chose to put my energy into being with someone rather than committing to achieving my dreams. On the other hand, the opportunity cost of chasing my dreams is happiness. Love brings you utils (a unit of satisfaction in Economics) and by choosing to chase your dreams instead of choosing to chase love, you lose out on that. With that said, I love love and I enjoy being in a relationship. At this point, I would love to have those extra utils in my life, but like our wise Lady Gaga said, your career isn't going to wake up one morning and tell you "it's not you, it"s me".

To all those women who woke up one day and were told they weren't loved anymore,

Your aspiring Economist

Post-script: Trust me, if I could have it all I would. But remember, there are always too many wishes and too little genies to make them all come true.