Is it worth it?

“Is it worth it?” is a question that comes up a lot. And when I say that, I mean, this happens every single time you purchase something.

Now to me, this is a simple choice. And it’s usually not about how much things cost either. For example, last year I wanted to get more exercise and improve my lifestyle and to do that I wanted to start cycling again. Always loved it as a child so it was something I knew I would enjoy again. I had plenty of bicycles to choose from in the shed. They all squeaked, were rusty, but all-in-all just fine. But I knew that in order for ME to not give up after a few weeks I would have to own a bike that didn’t cause me any trouble. I decided to buy a brand new bike and have ridden far more than I could have imagined when I was starting out. I have ridden hundreds of miles, found a wonderful new (and healthy!) hobby for me and I absolutely love it.

Subtle frustrations can cause me to give up on things without realizing it. This doesn’t even apply to your personal life either. It most definitely applies to work as well. My current job consists of developing websites on the ever-more-popular Rails framework. But even with it’s enormous popularity, learning Rails was a huge pain. At first, I just figured it was because I was unfamiliar with the tools, linux, and the codebase. Then I saw my coworker setup our site on OSX in under 2 hours, which took me 3 weeks to get partially working on Ubuntu. Wow. I went and purchased a macbook that same day and haven’t looked back since.

If you want to change something (be that yourself or the world), make sure you take a second to consider what is important to you. For me, when I want to make a change to my life, unless its forced upon me, it won’t be permanent unless I enjoy it. Riding a nice bike, working on a nice computer, whatever it is, you must enjoy it if you want it to stick. Dieting doesn’t work because you’re always conscious of this overhead of what you can and can’t have every time you eat. If you switch to being vegetarian and actually love vegetables, it’s not hard to stay that way.

You don’t need to give up what you love to make a change. Just find something new that you didn’t realize you loved that helps make that change.