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Puppy Quandry

What Seth Godin says about not thinking through actions that are easy to initiate but much harder to get value from apply in so many different ways in life too. The gym memberships that are got with the best intentions and never used, the self-help books that are read and never executed upon, the classes that are signed up for and never completed - the list goes on. The easier it looks to take the plunge the harder it is to get the real value. 

Compared to bigger decisions - getting married, having kids, changing careers and the like, none of them is as simple as getting a puppy and people usually have the time to think through what they are signing up for. Given the effort to get into the situation, they are likely to try much harder to get value out of it. 

This made me thinking about driving and parking experiences in different countries I have lived or traveled to. When the process is easy and predictable, chances are you will go out more, explore. Needless to say, the process will be fraught with redundancy and waste. 

Compare this to a place where driving is complicated because the streets are hundreds of years old, too narrow to fit even one small car comfortably. Every missed turn adds another half hour to your travel time because you have to trace your way way through a labyrinth of one-way streets. And after you manage to do all that, parking that car is high-stress acrobatic feat besides being expensive. In those conditions, the yen to explore and be fancy-free is tempered by reality. If you don't need to drive you won't. You will likely put a lot more thought into where you are going and why. You may have less freedom of movement and the trips you do make will be imbued with far greater meaning.

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