The Pursuit of Happyness

I had this discussion with a friend of mine a couple of months ago about happiness (I hope she doesn't mind me using our conversation as a piece here). Now; for the sake of context she is currently a freelance writer and is doing well but not astoundingly well yet. Before becoming a freelancer, she was an editor with one of India's biggest (or best or wotever...) KPOs. Although being a freelance writer is what she always wanted to be, she was bothered by the thought that in 5 years, she might realize that her career is going nowhere and would end up at some KPO or some other 9-5 job and would be unhappy and bitter considering the fact that she would have been in a higher position at a similar place if she hadn’t quit her job. Her situation is similar to the dilemma faced by many people at some point of their careers. Here’s what I think.

For the sake of simplicity assuming my friend Brinjal (No that’s not her real name) puts her honest efforts towards her attempts at being a freelancer (counting each project as an attempt) the probability of her being successful at an attempt is Pa=0.5. The probability calculation is highly simplified and does not consider micro factors. This is considering that an attempt shall either be successful or unsuccessful and then probability is calculated as one calculates the probability of either heads or tails as an outcome of a coin flip. Similarly the probability of her being unhappy or bitter if at all she has to go back to a 9-5 job is also Pb=0.5. This probability is calculated considering that she can be either happy or unhappy. This probability calculation is actually more accurate than we think. When we look at the situation in light of the synthetic happiness concept, we shall realize this. For details on the same check out this video on YouTube Dan Gilbert: Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy? (the video is in fact of far greater consequence than anything I am saying here).

The combined probability of Brinjal being unhappy = Pa x Pb = 0.5 x 0.5= 0.25.

This means that there is a 25% chance of her being unhappy. Now consider a scenario where she makes multiple attempts. The probability of success in each case being Pi=0.5 (i= 1,2,3…….n). Then the combined probability of Brinjal being unhappy= Pa x Pi x Pb (i=1,2,3……n). Consider a case where she makes only three more attempts after the initial attempt. Probability of unhappiness = Pa x P1 x P2 x P3 x Pb= 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5= 0.03125= 3.125%. More attempts she makes less are her chances of being unhappy. Intuitively as well we understand that Brinjal is better off making multiple attempts to fulfill her dream if she doesn’t achieve at her first attempt what she set out to.

What has all this got to do with Supply Chain Management? Well….nothing really. I shall get back to SCM the next time.

Surely a very smart idea

Can't really explain this one. You have to check it out http://www09.wolframalpha.com/. Seems to me to be one of the best things to have happened on world wide web in recent times. Check out the introductory video and you shall go crazy. I can't begin to imagine the possibilities.

You also might want to check out Microsoft's latest endeavor in search http://www.bing.com/.