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allthingsfern · 3 years

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In order, my responses to comments in Reply of my COVID19 era post that was my answer to my question “My answer to my questions: Has the era of COVID19 changed your photography? How? And perhaps also, why?“ I am so confused now...

adventuresofalgy

Algy thinks you are lucky and - certainly if compared with Europeans - perhaps quite unusual in not having experienced a more profound effect on your creative outlets and expression. Many of Algy's creative friends have experienced wide-ranging and often severe impacts on their creativity and associated motivation - and therefore on their mental health as well.

themazette

As @adventuresofalgy Jenny said.... you are lucky...

I am indeed very lucky, or as I think of it, blessed. However, it is no way a US thing, nor even a California thing. I add California, because I know many in the US and around the world think of the Golden State as a haven, a progressive, hippie filled state that is all about peace and love and marijuana. However, that is far from the truth. California is like Germany in the 1920s and 30s. There was Berlin, where there was a wildness in the city that was not shared, and was often looked-down on, by those in the majority of the country, who lived in more conservative areas and who, often, economically could not afford the grand life of partying Berliners. In California it is the same. Except for a few urban areas, the state is full of very conservative folks, and for them, like for those in the cities (and in the rest of the world) this COVID19 era has been devastating. Well, and the fires for Californians have been too.

Even in this cool college town where I live, which is lovely and quiet and inspiring, the painfully empty streets, movie theaters, restaurants, shops (think of all those unemployed people) is (still) staggering. In mid-March last year, right after lockdown, I took several phone videos of the deserted street in our town and the campus, but I could not bring myself to share them, since I knew that so many others here on Tumblr were experiencing the same desolation in many different ways. (I figured: “Why add to the sorrow we are living, almost globally?”) I was overwhelmed by the emptiness of the major (well, major for a small town of around 65,000 people) street where I live and the empty bicycle trails and street on campus. And by empty, I mean that even now, I see maybe 3 cyclists per hour, and very little car traffic. Remember, this is a bicycle town; I do not own a car, doing most all my errands on my bike with its 2 fordable baskets in the rear.

And now, over a year later, that same heavy, oppressive emptiness persists. And no, I am not used to it. And yes, I traveled over the last year, but I found the same suffocating blanket of emptiness in each city I visited, even in Las Vegas. It was unnerving. As a matter of fact, last year when I drove to San Francisco 2 months after lockdown for my birthday, I wound up getting depressed and disoriented, in a city where I lived for almost 7 years. Driving back home across the Golden Gate Bridge with tears of sadness in my eyes on my birthday was not what I expected. However, I did get some solid photos of the malaise that hung thick in the air, a malaise that physically took up the space that once was taken up by crowds of people.

Now, I am also very aware that my situation is unique. (Not a fan of the word exceptional, since it can mean both unique and special, and I do not see my situation as special.) My life situation is very unique in that I have a job I love and I work with a great team of characters. We get work done and we have fun, share about our lives. My job is often, especially since COVID19 first got noticed in early 2020, stressful and demands my colleagues and I learn (and sometimes then teach) lots of new technology and that we adapt to the vagaries of the technology gods, which are sometimes unfriendly and unresponsive. And a big part of my job is trying to figure out how to get the technology gods to like us again and grace us with their gifts. (I never realized, until now, with this discussion, that the troubleshooting that is a big part of my job is creative and probably fuels my photographic creativity. Who knew?) Yet, as a group, my colleagues and I support each other. And I am fortunate to count my closest colleague, Steve, as a friend. We have been a great emotional support to each other over the years and now through this COVID19 era. And I recently was reminded (as if I needed reminding) just how unique my work situation is because I participated in a committee that was going over responses to a UC Davis-wide survey exploring levels of employee satisfaction. My 2 colleagues who were also on that committee and I did not have the complaints that others from other departments shared. We work well together, have supportive management that share what is going on and include us (as mush as possible) in the decision making process. And as a department, we get stuff done.

Possibly the best example of how blessedly unique my situation is is what happened this morning when I was talking (yes, on ZOOM) with my immediate supervisor. We discussed the work related stuff, including how at around 10:30 pm the night before I figured something out about an online tool integration I had never done before that I knew was easy but I did not see as easy until I reread the overly complicated instructions a couple of times and just figured out how and where to cut and paste the lines of code (it was that easy, just fucking cut and paste some lines of JSON code) that got the fucking thing to work. Then we talked about his dealing with his young children returning to school and how “normal” now is not “normal” from before and how disruptive the whole thing has been, yet since we work in a supportive atmosphere (and are both salaried), he was able to deal and keep living.

Then, and you are gonna love this, I shared about my original COVID19 question post and the responses and pretty much said to him what I am sharing here.

We talked for a little over an hour. That kind of rapport is rare, for any job, anywhere.

And then there is another way my situation is unique. In some ways, previous “bad things” were actually a preparation for this era of physical distance and uncertainty. In mid-2019, from July to August, first because of my work related bowling concussion and then an antibiotic resistant infection, I was bedridden for about 5 weeks and then had several absences because of concussion issues, like sudden and extreme anger flare ups, nausea, headaches. But however bad I thought that concussion and infection were, the concussion induced forgetfulness and my desire to sharpen my mind and nurture and nourish it have lead me to become, in my old age, organized. I now often take notes of important stuff, add work and personal dates and notes to my Outlook calendar, and even know what day it is, which bugs my colleagues who often find they have no idea what day and/or date it is. Yep, unique, but the bad concussion shit got me to be organized in ways that I was never able to be before, no matter what I tried. This time, I just fucking get organized, without thinking about it too much. And if I fuck up with my being organized, like I did the other day for work, I admit it, fix it, and move on.

Preparation for isolation (and unexpected natural threats) came by way of the 2018 Northern California (the region where I live) fires that year, which caused the campus to shut down for about a week. (As my friend Steve called it, the smoking break.) And for work, my colleagues and I faced a couple of long term, emergency technical outages that impacted all of the UC Davis faculty, one of them for over a month. Pretty much on a professional and personal level, I was, if not ready, at least getting used to the WTF of whatever life decides to surprise me with. (And lets not forget the really bad fire last September, seen in this video I posted of ash “snow” falling. We did not have to shut down the campus because there was no one there anyway.)

Another aspect of this last year, and one that has been present in my life for a few years now, is the BLM movement and the brutal police violence against Black people in this country. As someone who was a teaching assistant and taught in African American Studies and worked closely with students of color on campus in a student run organization, I was and am still devastated, in part because I know, from hearing so many personal accounts, the pain many of my friends, former colleagues, and former students, are still facing and how overwhelmed they felt and still feel. I understand, if as an outsider, their emotional exhaustion. This has been going on for a while, plus add the years of anti-immigrant hate against the Latinx in the US and the rising tide of violent hate against Asians, and yes, it has been sorrowful. Heartbreaking. And I have, in several ways, including my photography, tried to capture the sorrow and resilience of US people of color. It hurts, almost physically, that many people of color are just tired of talking and dealing with the hate.

So, yes, my situation is unique, but with its own emotionally draining weight. And yes, I am extremely grateful. This leads to the other 2 comments in Reply:

kkomppa

Thank you for sharing, Fern. Very interesting. Like you, I would say my output hasn’t changed much. However, I have sought locations deeper in the wilderness. This has been fulfilling.

schwarzkaeppchen

Really interesting thoughts. We live in strange times, but creativity and motivation comes and goes for so many different reasons. My photography has changed a lot. I used to work as a photographer at events and took portraits for fun... Now I'm officially a portrait photographer.

Both of these comments point to another unique aspect of my life situation: For some of us, our photography and how we do it, has not changed much, and if it has, that has been a part of our overall experience with this art form we love so much.

For me, because of my depressive tendencies, the Zen of photography, at least the way I do it, is therapeutic. And I do not use the term “Zen” lightly here, because my spiritual life has helped me come to terms with the WTF surprises that are pretty much life, if at times the WTF of it is more impactful, as it is during this COVID19 era. And that is part of what I was trying to share with my original post: Before this period of isolation and disorientation, I was already coming to grips with the gospel truth that “creativity and motivation comes and goes for so many different reasons.” as @schwarzkaeppchen said. In no way do I diminish the anguish flared up by these bleak times that impact so many around the world. And really, when you think about it, bleak times have been a norm, at least here in the US, since late 2016, though, of course, lockdowns and physical distance make it all worse. But, at least for me, I try to learn from the bleak times, even if I abhor going through them. And when dealing with the highs and lows of creative energy, at least for me, I have a calm certainty that photography is part of my life and I do not have to worry, since I only love it more each day. And the other side to my certainty is that if someday my love of photography fades, some other treasure of creativity will replace it.

Let’s be real, because of photography. I think about stuff like this and get to have discussions with so many great Tumblr original photographers.

And I am grateful for it, and no, this is not unique to my life situation. I know many of us love being here and sharing the good, the bad, the confounding.

Please think about joining @tvoom and me for InConverversation this month. It has been a long time since we talked, and this COVID19 era will be our topic.

I am grateful for all y’all.

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rosinapowrie-blog · 5 years

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The Teacher Dichotomy: the problem with hero teachers.

“The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing at all, for sure” – Socrates

Learning isn't just about passing exams. Since starting a career in teaching four years ago, I have struggled to remember this myself, let alone show pupils what they could be missing out on. In response, I set up a school society mimicking TEDx Talks, giving kids the chance to listen to in interesting lecture at lunchtime with no hidden agenda: simply to try to show them that academia goes beyond mark schemes and box ticks. This was my opening address entitled 'The Teacher Dichotomy: the problem with hero teachers.'

_______________________________________________________________________In my first fortnight of teaching at a prestigious new school, once we got over that slightly awkward unsure phase of ‘nu teacher who dis,’ a student asked me where I’d been to university and what I’d studied...

‘St Andrews, in Scotland... where Prince William went’ (I added after only a minuscule pause which I have become accustomed to when speaking of the tiny town on the East Fife coast). ‘I read English Literature, but did loads of modules in Philosophy, Classics, Art History... it was good.’ ‘Wow’ the student replied, ‘that’s like really good isn’t it? You must be... like... really clever..!’ And then the student said the 10 words that have shocked me the most in my haggering career as an educator... ‘So why did you end up as a teacher then?’ Now I am not so naive as to think that this is simply one view held by one teenager in that particular moment... What this delightful girl had uttered was probably the ultimate Freudian slip of today’s youth... you lot just don’t see the value in education for its own sake... you think that school is just something you have to get through, preferably do well at, then you can start living your best life. But this must be challenged: if we know and accept that gaining knowledge is a vital crevasse to conquer whilst mountaineering the Range of Success, why do we see it merely as a means to an end? Why can we not enjoy the ride, live in the moment, and value our opportunity to learn new stuff? Why is it that, still in 2018, when teaching is known to be one of the most draining and stringently trained professions, requiring the skill and discipline of an artist, athlete and jail warden simultaneously all before 9am 5 days a week, do our very target audience view our profession as a sort of embarrassing accident that losers happen to fall into? Perhaps you are already outraged by my cynicism. I am aware I am currently preaching to the converted - you guys have chosen to spend your lunch time in this room pursuing knowledge and discussion. But I vehemently believe that this modern apathy to education is due largely to the portrayal of teachers in the media and popular culture. I don’t solely mean the ludicrous click bait that floods your newsfeeds every day (I’m thinking headlines such as ‘boy of 1 wins Nobel peace prize for finding cure to cancer despite failing all GCSEs - who needs em anyway’ or even just the multitude of distracting cat videos you’d much rather be watching), I mean those subliminal messages in books, TV and film that have been drip fed to my generation and yours in our formative years. I’m talking about The Teacher Dichotomy: heroes vs villains. By this, I mean that teachers are firmly type cast into two roles: the sickening sycophant who inspires their flock with their unconventional quirks and flagrant disregard for any sort of teaching standard... that one who really gets down to da youf’s level. Or, worse, the maniacal villain who struts around with a cape and cane doling out detentions and appearing entirely inhumane. The inability to portray teachers as warm blooded mammals with the same instincts, desires and fears as the rest of the world has not only devalued the joy of education, it actually undermines the incredible passion and hard work that goes into just the average, unmemorable bog standard Mr or Mrs Bloggs’ daily job as a teacher. On demand, could anyone name an example of just a regular teacher that a) exists in a book/film etc and b) fulfils meaningful purpose in the plot purely in his or her role as educator and not for any other reason? Three examples analysed... Firstly, our heroes: I’ll start with that that ever hilarious, ever chaotic excuse for a school teacher portrayed by loveable comedian Jack Whitehall in popular BBC3 series ‘Bad Education.’ Alfie Wickers, the History NQT at Abbey Grove School, prefers to befriend students rather than enable them responsibly to achieve their potential. His typical pedagogy includes such escapades as practical re-enactments of battles, or ‘Class Wars’, where any Ofsted inspector would literally have a fit at the flagrant violation for safeguarding an 'ealf and safety. Yet Mr Wickers is respected by Form K – they even like him and learn from him – but do we see any assessment, formative or summative? Do we see him planning or marking? Do we see him tracking progress and planning interventions? While it may be a TV show, and art does not need to imitate life, the point is that Mr Wickers is seen as a fun, likeable teacher. If he did anything that he was actually supposed to, he would be seen as boring. And what sort of message is that sending a young audience – that the people who dedicate their lives to ensuring their progress in a conventional way are not heroes. Only those who offer them fun and entertainment, and no actual learning, are.

At the other end of the positive spectrum, there are those sorts of hero teachers who move students emotionally, yet still wouldn’t actually pass an observation. The epitome is John Keating – the maverick English master portrayed by Robin Williams in the classic ‘80s film, ‘Dead Poets Society.’ Keating encourages his vulnerable student, Anderson, to come out of his shell by joining the eponymous banned extracurricular club. Here, he forges friendships with unlikely characters and experiences true life and love by looking at poetry differently and forgetting the pressures and requirements of school. Professor Keating is eventually called out for his disregard for school standards and duly sacked, leaving the boys chanting a heart-wrenching chorus of Whitman’s ‘O Captain, my Captain’ whilst standing on desks. It’s the ultimate bildungsroman: the boys have come of age, and Keating helped them get there. Yet again, his inspiring nature is not at all borne of his skill in traditional education methods, but rather the fact that he ignores them completely. Yet another example of the hero teacher, shaming regular teachers into the background of mediocrity.

And now the other end of the spectrum – the villains. Who better to analyse than Rowling’s malevolent Professor Umbridge, who swans into Hogwarts in The Order of the Phoenix with the sole aim of making monumental, ‘Ministry approved’ changes to the school curriculum and generally shaking the status quo. Fans of the series, let’s forget the reasons behind our negative view of Umbridge’s changes for now (the government’s refusal to believe that Voldemort has returned, etc) and read this simply as a teacher trying to raise standards by reviewing current practice and attempting to embed systemic change. We see this when she addresses the school for the first time: ‘some old habits will be retained, and rightly so, whereas others, outmoded and outworn, must be abandoned. Let us move forward, then, into a new era of openness, effectiveness and accountability, intent on preserving what ought to be preserved, perfecting what needs to be perfected, and pruning wherever we find practices that ought to be prohibited." This sounds rather like a forward-thinking teacher, school leader or governor wanting to make improvements, yet she is completely slated and seen as evil. For example, what are her actual crimes: conducting lesson observations of fellow staff? Holding staff accountable for their performance and the progress of pupils, and removing them from post if they are not up to scratch? Ensuring that the curriculum is standardized? Essentially, all things that normal teachers do in normal schools to meet the teachers’ standards and provide robust education systems. However, she is utterly vilified for doing so: so much so that Rowling chooses to portray her as committing the ultimate teacher-sin – failing to safeguard students and actually physically assaulting them in her detentions. This is a choice the author has made: to show traditional schooling and education standards as petty compared to the great, heroic things that the rest of the Hogwarts teachers inspire the heard with. The irony is that Umbridge is certainly the only member of staff who would even pass a PGCE, let alone be promoted to senior leadership, in real life. Yet again, we see the dichotomy in action, reinforcing that subliminal message that traditional education is nasty, negative and pointless.

The glass ceiling must be broken and education needs to be esteemed once more. The conditioning we’ve been subjected to through popular culture has not helped, but now we have been enlightened to our ignorance. The great irony is that if we enjoy the ride, stop seeing education as a means to end, but rather an end in itself, then you will get further in life if you have become a fully rounded person with a broad cultural capital. Take umbrage with Umbridge: value your current opportunities and enjoy learning your subjects even if you never need to use that information again.

#teaching #englishteaching #cultural capital #tedxtalks #heroteachers #doloresumbridge #johnkeating #deadpoetssociety #bad education #socrates #knowledge #teachingandlearning #pedagogy #academia

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ourhealthyfoodblog-blog · 7 years

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New Post has been published on Healthy Food and Remedies

New Post has been published on http://healthyfoodandremedies.com/2017/02/22/10-overrated-life-decisions/

10 Overrated Life Decisions

The first edition of The Game of LIFE hit stores in 1960. For generations of American families, the popular board game has served as a blueprint for making major life decisions. There’s a logical progression to the game. First, you go to college. Then, you start a career, get married, have babies, hopefully get a promotion, roll the dice with stocks and bank loans, and dream of retiring peacefully at Countryside Acres.

It’s the status quo for many Americans, but who says real life needs to play out like a board game? Or that there’s only one path to happiness, and it requires 2.33 children and a four-bedroom Colonial in the suburbs? Maybe, just maybe, some of real life’s most important decisions are wildly overrated.

Before you take out tens of thousands of dollars in student loans (this ain’t Monopoly money) or propose to your high school sweetheart, consult our list of the top 10 life decisions that may not pay off.

Going to College

Going to college should be a purposeful decision. Make sure you don’t get yourself in deep debt and that your major gets you a well-paying job. ISTOCKPHOTO/THINKSTOCK

Your parents and teachers have been singing the praises of a college education from the day you spelled “CAT” with a set of alphabet blocks. You’ve heard it a thousand times. College is the path to a fulfilling, well-paying career; college is the greatest time of your life!

Or is it?

It might depend who’s footing the bill. The average cost of a single year at a four-year private American college in 2010 to 2011 was $32,617 [source: National Center for Education Statistics]. To cover that kind of tuition, two-thirds of U.S. college students take out loans. The average student loan debt for the class of 2011 was $26,600, the highest on record [source: Ellis].

True, workers with college degrees can make considerably more over the course of their careers than those with only a high-school diploma. But what if you drop out of college before you get your degree? According to a 2013 report funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 46 percent of college students (and 63 percent of African-American students) don’t graduate within six years [source: Resmovits]. Now you’re in debt with no degree to help pay it off.

Even if you get a degree, your choice of major may leave you unemployable in a tight job market. For instance, in 2010, anthropology and archeology majors had a 10.5 percent unemployment rate on average and a starting salary of $28,000. A film major earned $30,000 and experienced a 12.9 percent unemployment rate [source: Goudreau].

Voting

Voters in Silver Spring, Md. wait in a two-block line to vote. If you’re that determined, at least be informed of the candidates and the issues before casting your ballot. TONI L. SANDYS/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

Don’t get us wrong, we’re not knocking voting. It feels great to walk out of a polling place with an “I voted” sticker on your chest and know that you helped select the next president/state senator/school board member. But could the true value of your vote be overrated?

First, there’s the whole Electoral College thing. If you are a Republican and live in a state that’s overwhelmingly blue, your single vote isn’t worth much in a presidential election. If the U.S. elected its presidents by popular vote, then your vote would be added to the millions tallied in other states. But with the “winner takes all” system of electors, your vote is negated by your neighbors’.

Even in popular vote contests, the odds of a single vote determining the decision are highly unfavorable. In a study of 40,000 state legislative elections dating back to 1898, only seven were decided by a single vote. A 1910 election in Buffalo was the only congressional election of the century to be decided by a single vote [source: Mangu-Ward]. Your vote would have more of an impact in a primary or run-off but voters tend to skip those unless there’s a hot-button issue on the ballot as well.

Sadly, if you really want your preferred candidate to get elected, your money is probably worth more than your vote. In a survey of congressional elections in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008, the candidate who raised the most money won the contest between 73 and 94 percent of the time [source: Jacobson].

Getting Married

Marriage can be hazardous to your health. On the other hand, divorce can be hazardous to your wealth. So choose wisely. ISTOCKPHOTO/THINKSTOCK

Love and marriage are inextricably tied in the American psyche. As Frank Sinatra crooned in the 1950s, “You can’t have one without the other.” Or can you? Is there any compelling reason, beyond social norms, for a loving couple to get married? What might be the downside to tying the knot?

Marriage is a legally binding contract with serious implications for breaching that contract. If you are dating someone and they cheat on you, you break up and that’s it. But if you are married and the love of your life is unfaithful, you can’t just break up. You need to get a divorce, an emotionally and financially sapping legal proceeding. According to researchers at Ohio State, divorce drains an individual’s wealth by an average of 77 percent, and that goes for both men and women [source: Grabmeier].

Then there are the health effects of marriage, which are frequently touted as highly positive. Married people live longer on average and experience fewer chronic diseases. But those studies ignore the unfortunate existence of the unhappy marriage. According to some studies, a troubled and stressful relationship causes as much damage to the heart as a smoking habit. And divorced people tend to have more physical ailments than single people of the same age who never married [source: Parker-Pope].

Having a Baby

“Having my baby…What a lovely way to say how much you love me…” Sure is — as long as you have the cash. ISTOCKPHOTO/THINKSTOCK

There are moments of incomparable joy as a parent — those first steps, your name on their lips, watching them grow and thrive — that we wouldn’t trade for the world. But are there aspects of having a baby that are overrated? Absolutely.

First, there are the physical demands of parenthood. If the trauma of labor and delivery isn’t enough, there are the months — if not years — of sleep deprivation. And the loss of sexual activity because you’re both just too tired [source: BBC]

Then there are the financial demands of children. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which releases an annual report on the cost of raising children, a middle-class American family spends between $10,000 and $15,000 a year on each child from birth to age 18. Higher-income families — earning more than $102,870 a year — spend between $20,000 and $25,000 on each kid per year [source: USDA]. Is it any wonder that some financially prudent young couples are opting out of parenthood for the significant cash savings [source: Taha]?

Again, we aren’t arguing that having a baby isn’t “worth it.” Just that there are pros and cons to every major life decision, and if you can’t live with the cons, pay attention to this final figure: The dollar investment in a single condom has a 9 million percent return compared to the cost of raising a child [source: Hind].

Climbing the Corporate Ladder

Sometimes the view from top is worse than the view from the bottom. ISTOCKPHOTO/THINKSTOCK

There is a mindset in corporate America that if you aren’t moving forward, you’re falling behind. The idea of progress in a corporate career is to get promoted, or at least get a significant raise. To tread water in the same position at the same salary is a sign of failure. Before you base your life satisfaction on the title on your cubicle wall, remember that they call it a “rat race” for a reason.

Why might a promotion be overrated? For starters, some people are very happy in their current position and have no interest in managing a team, attending tons of meetings, or traveling every other week. For those employees, it’s smarter to say you are flattered by offers of promotion but feel you can contribute more to the company in your current position [source: Tahmincioglu]. It doesn’t hurt to ask for the raise, though.

Other people find the very idea of a corporate work environment creatively stifling and emotionally draining. The answer for many such folks is to ditch the rat race and launch their own business. Sometimes it takes one of the other life events on our list, like getting married or having a baby, to trigger the entrepreneurial spirit [source: Pierce]. But if the finances fall into place, the result — being your own boss and getting paid to do something you actually like — can be more satisfying than the most coveted corner office.

Buying a House

Marquita Ealy of the Richmond, Calif. chapter of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) tours a foreclosed home. Foreclosure is one of the risks you take if you buy a home before you are ready. JUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES

Buying a home is the crowning achievement of the American dream. Renting is seen as transient and unsettled, while home ownership is a sign of financial and emotional stability. A home is an opportunity to put down roots — a foundation on which to build the future of your family.

Or, it could be a gaping money pit.

If you can’t pay your rent, you can break your lease with minimal penalties. If you can’t pay your mortgage, you are looking at foreclosure, which will drag down your credit score.

If you’re renting and your water heater starts leaking, that’s the landlord’s problem. If you own your home, it’s your problem. If you aren’t handy, you’ll have to pay someone to come fix it or pay for a replacement.

If you’re still undecided between renting or buying, use a simple formula called the “price-to-rent ratio,” or P/R ratio. Here’s how it works. Find two similar houses or apartments in your target neighborhood, one that’s for sale and one that’s for rent (Web sites like Trulia make this easy). Take the sales price and divide it by the annual cost of renting (monthly rent times 12). If the number is greater than 20, then it’s a better financial deal to rent [source: Roth].

Relocating for a New Job

It might be flattering to be considered for a job in another location but make sure it will work out for you long-term. STURTI/E+/THINKSTOCK

Relocating for a new job is exciting — a fresh start in a new city, often with a better salary. But you need to ask yourself some serious questions before skipping town for greener pastures. First of all, if you own a home, will you be able to sell it? Or will a weak housing market mean taking a big loss on what you originally paid? If you lose tens of thousands of dollars by selling now, make sure your salary hike in the new job will cover it [source: Levin-Epstein].

You also need to gauge the new company’s commitment to you [source: Smith]. Are they covering moving expenses? Is there a clear path for promotion and growth within the company? And how strong is the company itself? Does it have the business model and track record to ensure long-term success? It would be a huge waste of time, energy and money to relocate only to watch the business fold in a year.

Other important considerations: your spouse’s job prospects, your kids’ new schools and how well you fit into the culture of the new city.

Exercising More

Exercise can actually be bad for you if you do it the wrong way. So see a doctor before you begin any exercise program. MICHAEL GREENBERG/PHOTODISC/THINKSTOCK

Exercise is undeniably a good thing … but it’s also possible to have too much of a good thing. Let’s start with yoga, a low-impact workout practiced by an estimated 20 million Americans. In yoga studios across the country, uninitiated students are put through the standard paces of downward-facing dog and basic inversions like headstands. But some top yogis argue that even basic yoga positions can cause serious injury to people with existing health problems like back or joint issues [source: Broad].

And what about those marathon runners, the very model of physical fitness and endurance? A number of recent studies have shown that extreme endurance training can actually damage the heart. The prolonged cardiovascular stress of running a marathon can cause problems like arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat), calcification and even scarring. According to the research, there’s a limit to how much the heart can be pushed before it sustains damage. The culprit appears to be inflammation of the heart tissue during prolonged endurance training [source: Collier Cool].

Another inconvenient truth of exercise: It’s not a great way to lose weight. Major changes in diet — avoiding carbohydrates, sugars and starchy foods — will do much more to slim your waistline than walking briskly on the treadmill for 30 minutes a day [source: Bowden]. While an hour of vigorous daily exercise has proven effective for maintaining weight loss, exercise alone isn’t the most efficient way to shed unwanted pounds.

Retiring

This is the dream of retirement — happy couple on the beach. But what is the realityy? INGRAM PUBLISHING/THINKSTOCK

The traditional retirement fantasy goes something like this: Fishing on the lake with your buddies, traveling the world with your spouse, touring the country, and visiting the grandkids in a mobile home. Or simply sleeping in and reading a good book in the La-Z-Boy.

The harsh financial reality of modern retirement is radically different. Because of longer life expectancies and dwindling savings and investment returns, many retirees have to pinch every penny to maintain their standard of living. In some cases, they have to take low-wage jobs to make ends meet. In February 2013, the average 401(k) balance of people 55 and older was $143,300, not nearly enough to last 30 or 40 years, even with Social Security [source: Martin].

Even if you are financially prepared for retirement, you might find the experience profoundly overrated. Gone are the mental stimulation of your job, the social interaction of your work environment, and the sense of purpose and accomplishment that was built into your everyday routine.

That’s why some older workers advise against retiring until you are physically unable to do the work [source: Moeller]. Thanks to a 1986 amendment to the Age Discrimination and Employment Act, it’s illegal for most jobs to have a mandatory retirement age [source: EEOC]. Depending on your line of work, you could easily postpone retirement into your 70s and even 80s. By that point, you’ll have more money to live out your retirement fantasies, and the fish at the lake will still be biting.

Prolonging Life at All Cost

Doctors prepare to insert a tube in a patient’s chest. Should doctors extend patients’ lives at all cost? MURATSEYIT/E+/THINKSTOCK

Physicians and surgeons working in America’s hospitals have access to cutting-edge procedures that can prolong the lives of patients living with chronic diseases. But they don’t necessarily want them for themselves.

According to a Johns Hopkins University study of older physicians, 90 percent would not want CPR if they were in a coma. Only 25 percent of the public gives the same answer [source: Cohen]. Doctors know that the odds of recovering from “successful” CPR are extremely low, but the odds of broken ribs and increased pain are very high [source: Murray].

In private, many doctors are intensely troubled by the “anything and everything” approach to saving lives [source: Murray]. What’s the point of extending a life for a few short months if it means living in an intensive care unit connected to dozens of tubes and numbed to unconsciousness by pain medication?

And then there’s the cost. A full quarter of all Medicare spending pays for hospitals stays and procedures for 5 percent of people in their last year of life. And then there’s everything that Medicare doesn’t cover. An American couple can expect to spend more than $50,000 in out-of-pocket medical costs in the last five years of life [source: Wang]. Some procedures greatly improve and extend quality of life, but not all.

The best advice is to put end-of-life directives in writing, whether we want every possible medical procedure to prolong life, or to die peacefully without being recesisiated or put on life support.

Author’s Note: 10 Overrated Life Decisions

Having made eight out of the ten major life decisions on this list, I feel like I can speak with some confidence about the relative value of each. First, I should say that I don’t regret a single major life decision so far. I went to college, got married relatively young, have three amazing kids and a mortgage. All of them have worked out wonderfully. And the ones that didn’t work out as wonderfully — climbing the corporate ladder, relocating for a new job — I chalk up to valuable learning experiences. As my editor explained, the point of this article is not to slam anyone’s decision to get married or retire, but to point out the pros and cons of each, and encourage readers to think hard about some of life’s most potentially “life-changing” choices. In The Game of LIFE, you can always clear the board and start over. In real life, you have to live with your decisions, good or bad.

#Decisions

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