have you ever seen the rain coming down on a sunny day

i realized today, while finishing it up some mundane piece of work or other, that i'm glad that i'm an adult now. because being an adult means you have autonomy over what you say and do, and that you can own your problems. you're free to choose who you are and who you want to be with. and most of all you have every right to do what is necessary to get yourself out of your own mess.

so i can choose to stay home and watch 10 episodes of my favorite tv show in one day. i can spend 4 hours playing video games to relieve whatever self-inflicted stress comes along. i can choose to eat nothing but junk food, and use whisky as a sleeping aid. if i wanted to, i can start chain smoking to surpress my panics. i could simply stop living, and just float.

i read a book over the past 2 days that basically tries to explain irrational behavior using a bunch of different mechanics. while i don't agree with a lot of that book (it's called 'sway') but there is one important chapter about risk aversion that i found quite useful. to put it metaphorically, risk aversion is what lies behind trying to dig your way out of a hole. the more you dig, the deeper you get, and the more you feel like you should keep digging, perhaps out of the belief that there's a ladder just a little deeper down, but mainly because the thought of how deep you are becomes much more obvious once you put that shovel down. the right thing to do is to stop and start yelling for help.

so i'm going to stop digging. of course, there is no one to hear my yelling, but it's the thought that counts.