Making Bets

I like to think of many of my actions and decisions as bets on myself. For example, spending $400 a month on high-quality groceries and ~3 hours a week preparing fresh meals for myself is a bet. I am sure that the upfront cost will be worth the dividends I receive in the future, in terms of my physical and mental health.

Perhaps the biggest bet in my life was choosing to pursue a PhD. This involved a lot of long-term speculation: I specifically bet on the idea that 4-5 years of learning to be an independent researcher (and by extension, an independent thinker) would outweigh the benefits of spending those years working a job directly out of college. Those counterfactual benefits that I am missing out on are huge, so this is a real risk.

With each bet comes ownership, or skin in the game. This is the tough part. It’s tempting to cruise through life, because if shit hits the fan, no one will blame you. You just followed the script. But if you go against the grain and bet on yourself? Now you own the outcome. Whether you win or lose, you will need to take the credit.

I am guilty of shying away from “skin in the game” at times. There is a mental barrier to betting on yourself, but it is largely counterintuitive. There is zero downside in staying put, but there is also zero upside. To live a life of above-average upside, then, you must be getting some sort of exposure to risk.

But is the safe path even that safe? Avoiding placing bets on yourself absolves you of the blame, but it doesn’t necessarily protect you from the outcome. If I took the default path for a computer science graduate and went to go work at a big tech company out of college, chances are I would have been laid off by now. Sure, it wouldn’t be “my fault”, but I’d still be without a job. Now, if my PhD doesn’t work out the way I want it to, I’ll also face a harsh reality, and on top of that it will be “my fault” for choosing the riskier path. But at least now my fate is in my hands. I can live with that.