Waffling on the CPL
I'm seriously thinking about dropping getting the CPL (commercial pilot's license) this year. On the one had, I'm halfway through the groundschool. It's only 8 weeks to finish it and then the exam. On the other hand, I'm learning that 2 nights a week is really taxing. It means making dinner in advance, not to mention all of the other things I could be doing - including all of the events that get scheduled for Mondays and Wednesday nights. If it were something that I really needed it would be simple - I'd just finish it. But I really don't need it a CPL for anything. I'm never planning on going into flying as a career and even for recurrent training, it's not necessary this soon after the IFR. I'm really starting to think that I need to focussed elsewhere in my life right now.
Update: Thanks to everyone that gave me their thoughts on this. I've decided to drop the CPL for now. The clincher is that I called the flight school, and they've agreed to let me take it back up next year if I want to, so postponing comes with almost no cost.
Update: Thanks to everyone that gave me their thoughts on this. I've decided to drop the CPL for now. The clincher is that I called the flight school, and they've agreed to let me take it back up next year if I want to, so postponing comes with almost no cost.
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ReplyDeleteThe pre-amble:
1. You should do what makes you happy.
2. Realize that what makes you happy will always always always be changing.
3. Always.
4. Realize doing things to make you happy is therefore a moving target.
5. Realize therefore that any decision you made in the past and in the future really have no room or reason for regrets because you were acting with your best interest in mind at the time and since you can't predict the future or re-write the past, those choices don't factor in to the decision you have to make now for your happiness (this is probably the sociology version of the economic concept of sunk cost :P).
The solution:
That's great, Yuy... but how does that help in understanding what I should do NOW?
6. Make a list of your current obligations and things you are doing (what's eating your time)
7. Make a list of the things you are wanting to do but don't have the time to do right now
8. Writer down a few scenarios of what you want your life to look like bw now and, say... 3-4 years from now (where would you live? what will you be doing? what are your potential hobbies? Who are you spending your time with? etc).
9. Pick your top two scenarios from 8, see how they align to the things you are doing (6) and the things you want to be doing (7). If the things you are doing now (6) is aligned with your scenarios in (8), then keep doing them. Otherwise, re-juggle to maximize utility.*
Also as a final:
10. Don't listen to what other people tell you that you should do and always take advice with a grain of salt. As Baz Luhrmann said " Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of
fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth."
Good Luck
*This method is not scientifically proven and the author makes not guarantees of successful decision making being the result.
Thanks for this Yuy! It's probably closer to the process that I'll use for the larger questions ahead of me. Fortunately, there's a short circuit here: there is absolutely no scenario that's even close to consideration in which I need the CPL. It's a good thing to do if I'm likely to keep flying, but it's entirely at my leisure. Given the stress it's causing me and how early we are in the process, I've decided to drop it.
ReplyDelete