Planning v. overthinking

I suppose I inherited from my father the gene that makes me a compulsive planner.  It is a fine line that separates planning for one's life from the person becoming a worrywart.  While worries about the future are incentives to plan ahead, those worries can also preclude constructive action.

My hope is that I am a planner, who thinks ahead as much as possible, fully aware that shit happens.  Like an unplanned career-ending layoff.  Planning ahead prepares us for the shit that can happen anytime, anywhere.  We can at least mitigate the effects that can otherwise be disastrous.

While a career-ender is one thing, end of life is completely another.  There is no escaping death that awaits us all.  How does one plan for death?  Should one plan for that final event?

As one who compulsively plans, I have been an ardent supporter of dying with dignity.  Should my health conditions fail, I want to be able to exit this world with dignity.  It is not a coincidence that my first newspaper commentary after moving to Oregon was in support of the state's Death with Dignity Act, which the "pro-life" Republicans were all too keen on dismantling.

In an intensely personal essay, Lionel Shriver writes: "Above a certain subjective threshold of torment, life is not worth living. It fails a primitive cost-benefit analysis."  It is a personal calculation, of course that makes one question, "Should We Stay Or Should We Go"?

Like many, I hope that I will quickly and painlessly go at a sweet spot in life.  However, looking at this horizon is different from worrying about it.  Planning is different from overthinking, especially because "excessive planning can have other negative effects including exacerbating worries."

For instance, when planning carefully, it’s tempting to try to predict all the things that could possibly interfere with a plan and how to potentially handle such events should they occur, thereby initiating a process of worry. Others plan meticulously because they believe that they won’t be able to cope otherwise, which can lead to excessive worries when planning isn’t possible or unexpected events arise.

Unexpected events always arise.  Life is a series of events over which we rarely have any control, though we like to claim agency when the outcomes are good.

Of course, the "gene" that makes me a compulsive planner doesn't exist.  It is a behavior, which means that it can be easily changed as well.  Planners can become impulsive, and non-planners can learn to plan ahead.  Worrying is also a behavior that can be altered:

Many view overthinking as an innate personality trait; something we can’t change. However, overthinking, in terms of worry and rumination, is a learned strategy that we choose – consciously or unconsciously – in trying to deal with our thoughts and feelings. It’s basically a habit that we fall into, but we can learn to change it.

So, yes, plan ahead.  And worry less.  Be happy.

If only economists understood that it is wicked problems all around :(

The commie leanings during my early years were primarily why I ditched electrical engineering.  Of course, I ditched most of the commie thoughts even before I applied for a student visa to come to the US, and over the years have come to even delight at the nonsense spouted by "socialists."

Engineering, however, gave a false sense of confidence about solving the pressing problems.  I simply believed that qualified minds had to approach the problems like how engineers tackled problems and, bingo, the world will become a better place.  Come to think of it, that is what the commie thinking also told me ;)

And then came the reading list in the first year of graduate school.  Through that I came to realize that an engineering approach to solving problems will not work for the social issues that I wanted to not only study but solve.  Because, of the "wicked problems."

If you have never come across the phrase 'wicked problems" before, hey, it isn't your fault--you had better things to do than go to graduate school and doodle around like I did ;)  Ok, seriously, there is a fair chance you have not come across that phrase before, but the moment you read up about it, you will fall in love with that idea.  Soon, the world will look like it has nothing but wicked problems.

So, what the hell is a wicked problem, you ask?  Instead of directing you to the papers by Churchman, Webber, and Rittel, I will give you the Wikipedia overview:

[A] problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. The use of term "wicked" here has come to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil. Moreover, because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems.

You see right away plenty of examples, right?

Now, if only economists understood that most of what they study is also nothing but wicked problems.  Instead, they believe that economics is a science--like physics--and, therefore, they can solve the problems like how we can approach scientific problems.  Thus, it is no surprise to me when I read this:

Ten years ago, a survey published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives found that 77 percent of the doctoral candidates in the leading American economics programs agreed or strongly agreed with the statement "economics is the most scientific of the social sciences."
In the intervening decade, a massive economic crisis rocked the global economy, and most economists never saw it coming. Nevertheless, little has changed: A new paper from the same publication reveals how economists continue to believe that their science is superior to all other social sciences

Yep, as the joke goes, economists have correctly predicted eight of the last six recessions! ;)

The author--Moisés Naím--notes:

The world is still living with the effects of the most recent economic crisis, and the inability of economists to offer solutions with a significant degree of agreement shows how urgently their discipline needs to be disrupted by an injection of new ideas, methods, and assumptions about human behavior.

Yep, remember that old joke about President Truman calling for a one-handed economist?

Naím concludes his piece with this:

Ten years ago, I suggested that economists would “be well advised to trade in their intellectual haughtiness for a more humble disposition.” That's advice that has yet to be heeded.

Makes it quite a wicked problem for economists!