It is true. I am not ashamed of it. I perform cost-benefit analysis on relationships.
I remember sitting in one of the first classes of my second year of graduate school. I had just graduated with my Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. In conjunction with my regular undergraduate workload, I was taking the first year graduate school courses.
I had originally meant to enter the Environmental Studies program when I was transferring from my 7th year at community college. Once I entered UCSC I found out that one had to test into E.S. I also then heard of an accelerated Master’s of Science degree in Economics, which also meant taking the GRE’s. The minute I became aware that I was weighing the cost of getting into either program – having to take a test to enter, and the benefit – a B.S. in one year vs. an M.S. in two – well, it became very apparent where I should apply my efforts.
So there we were, a handful of wide-eyed undergrads who slogged out a summer class giving us the necessary background in linear algebra to understand the basics of regression analysis. I didn’t even understand the latter part of that last sentence until the end of my first year of graduate school.
That handful of us, many of which, as undergraduates made the same cost-benefit analysis as I, were thrown into the world of regression analysis and econometrics with the expectation to sink or swim with first year PhD candidates. We survived and here we were, freshly minted graduate students, already veterans on the path to receive an master’s degree. Those of us who salivated at the thought of getting an M.S. with only one year of graduate school and forgot to ask what we were going to study, finally understood what we were getting a degree for.
The guest professor that day, was guest lecturing from Stanford. I can’t remember his name, but he was personable and smart and had some great stories. He started telling a story about a friend of his in college who was such a geek that he would do things like perform cost-benefit analysis of his relationships and so forth. Not seconds after he started the story, my entire cohort turned around to look at me.
If economics is the allocation of scarce resources for competitive uses, then it would be appropriate to use understand it in terms of my most valuable resources – my time and attention.
Now there are people who would argue love would be valuable, if not even more valuable, but I like to think that love is infinite and is bounded only by my physical existence and my ability to stay conscious and focused- at least that is the reality tunnel I am in at the moment. I am sure that dedicating my life to meditation or psychedelics, I would be able to alter that tunnel, but as of yet I have not been so inspired.
The idea of the finiteness of my time and attention is summed up, for me, with the “Core Four.” This is the notion that a person can only maintain up to four really intimate, deep, connected, relationships at one time. I like to hope it is actually the “Core Six,” because given “Six Degrees of Separation” holds true and I can ensure that I have six relationships that move, touch, and inspire each of us to become better human beings, then we can move, touch, and inspire everyone on the planet to become better human beings.
The trick, I think, is to make sure the other six people don’t all share the same six people and you get a closed clique. What we want is an open chain with each node touching as many different nodes as possible.
Do I perform cost benefit on those six people? No. Cost-benefit for me has evolved only when my heart and gut cannot give me a proper answer. Those four to six relationships leave no question. Who does not want to be intimate and loved by the most inspirational and loving human beings you know.
