Safetogototown

I have had a week to mull over my previous post regarding the series Dopesick and the specific element I highlighted.  How did an educated and experienced group of people take an incomplete piece of information and run with it as if it was a multi year million dollar study.  At some point someone had to read this short letter and decide to build an entire marketing campaign on it.  I am not writing this to investigate the motives of the players involved.  I am not really qualified to do this.  As I said last week, I will let you all watch the series and make up your own minds.  My aim is to help myself and others make decisions using information that is available to us.  Decisions that make us fulfilled, prosperous and safe.  The motives of sales people, executives and professionals are irrelevant to me in the end.  I guess "Buyer Beware" is more the theme of this blog. In the series Dopesick there was one short story line that was introduced...

  My wife and I just finished watching the Hulu mini series Dopesick.  First off this was an excellent and captivating series.  It approached the opioid crisis from many directions.  There were strong story lines regarding Purdue Pharma, the manufacturer of Oxycontin and the US Attorney from the Western District of Virginia.  These story lines were were interwoven with the FDA, DEA and the US Department of Justice.  These entwined story lines were a mere backdrop to the heartbreaking stories of the individuals and families affected by opioid addiction.  It is a series that I recommend you take the time to watch.   I am going to try my best not to label any of the players as evil or saintly.  I encourage you to watch it and come to your own conclusions.  I will however discuss or motivations and biases.  What I am focused on is a piece of information that was quoted several times in the 8 episode series.  Although it was qu...

  I thought I would switch gears this week and return to a previous topic; misinformation.  The title of this blog "Safetogototown", reflects a desire to make the correct and safe decision.  Specifically whether or not it was safe to go into town during a pandemic.  One of the facets of making a type of decision like this is the information we use.  I can explain this even more simply.  I need to go to a town that is about a 1 hour drive.  I live in Texas and violent weather is always an issue.  There have been reports that current weather conditions could spawn storms.  Before deciding to head out I check a couple of sources to get a more detailed view of the weather.  From these sources I make a determination as to whether or not it is safe to make the trip. When I do this I am making a determination as to the validity of the sources of information.  Those sources could be the weather channel from TV or a local news outlets web si...

  Decision: Go fishing I figure it is about time to put a bow on this topic and provide some conclusions to the past weeks ramblings.  I hope I have learned something over the past 4 weeks.  As always the stated goal is to gain and maintain a level of control and confidence when making decisions.  This is a brief recap of the previous 4 posts. 1.)  What to do when it all goes wrong This post offered a emotional theme and a logical one.  Our emotional responses may be despair, frustration etc.. To deal with this emotional response we can logically assess an outcome using 3 factors.  The factors are legitimacy, severity and timing 2.)  Living with the decisions we make. Part 1 This post concluded with guardrails and constraints.  The important idea was how these change when we retire.  There are many uncertainties to deal with in retirement. 3.)  Living with the decisions we make. Part 2 Simple steps One way we deal with decisions goi...

  It was an interesting week.  Unlike most weeks I thought very little about this blog and what I was going to post.  Usually as the week progresses a number of ideas pop into my head.  These ideas quite often make it into my weekly post.  For some reason this week very few ideas arose.  I was wondering if ideas were coming so rapidly that I did not have time to consume them.  I toyed with the going back to carrying a note pad and pencil.  That way I could quickly jot down any random thought that came into my head.  I could then review these when I had time to more fully understand them.  I decided however to review my last week and came to a different conclusion. To begin with it seemed like a more fulfilling week than normal.  This is highly unusual since my wife was away for an extended part of the week.  Even after 40 years of marriage (40 this year actually) I still miss her when she is away.  this usually leads to a ...