Opportunity cost is the economic concept that doing anything (purchasing an object, going somewhere, participating in any activity) has a cost that is expressing in the forgone choices (participating in A precludes participating in B at the same time). Von Wieser (Austrians FTW) is the first to really elaborate on this idea.
When we take a moment to look back and examine any choice with the concept of opportunity cost at hand, it is not difficult to begin to doubt oneself. Making any choice in the past means that we forwent any other choices. We begin to doubt ourselves. Should I have gone out that night? What could I have done then? Should I have not bought that? What could I have spent that money on (though this ties into sunk costs)? Should I have spent more time on that friendship? Should I have spent less? What could I have done with that time that I wasted on a since-ruined friendship? Doubt begins to sink in.
Of course, this all can be more closely examined from an objective point of view through praxeology, the study of human action, but that is more-so designed to study human beings as a whole.
The only person who can really be the judge of whether a past action was worth the opportunity cost is the person who made the decision originally.
Really, it is not even necessary to look at action in retrospect to examine their opportunity cost and be aggravated by it. The frustrations brought on by wasted and lost time are especially evident in situations where coercion is a major factor. Just like other actions, only the individual is qualified to decide whether or not it is worth their time to be doing something (think of conscription, slavery, compulsory education, etc). The only real solution to this present-tense frustration with forgone alternatives is personal choice.
That being said, I guess the opportunity cost of maintaining a blog isn’t too high for me. Zak Slayback’s blog is born.
