Month: March 2010

  • Life in Terms of Microeconomics

    This semester I’m taking both Microeconomics and Financial Accounting.  I was originally planning on majoring in Finance and Accounting, but half through this semester, I realized I really like Microeconomics and really hate Accounting.  There goes my so-called dedication. >.<

    The thing is, though, is that Accounting is about the here and now, plain and simple.  Numbers are clear cut and your financial standing can only be interpreted two or three ways.  On contrary, Microeconomics accounts for the could-bes.  Not all losses should impact your decision making.  Quite simply, Micro is about decision making and accounting is about decision evaluating. 

    Micro largely parallels the way I think about life.  Bear with me, I’m only halfway through an introductory Microeconomics course, so my understanding might be a bit superficial.

    I was watching Lion King the other day, and the very popular theme of “Hakuna Matata” provoked me to think.  Although the lions of Pride Rock disagree with these school of thinking, I think it holds some validity.  Mistakes in the past that can’t be recovered are “sunk costs.”  They can’t be fixed, and there’s now way to change them. Why dwell on them?  Microeconomics teaches you to throw these bad decisions aside, because there’s no way to fix them.  Also, future decisions shouldn’t be made based on sunk costs.  Each decision is independent, and to make a decision based on a sunk cost is impractical. 

    However, referring to the present, there is much more than just what you literally have and literally lost, as accountants would think.  There is also what you could have, opportunities that could be striven for, but however, left not obtained.  These are opportunity costs.  These are ways your life could be better if you just took the chance.  Money you could making, relationships you could be forming. 

    Microeconomics is about bettering your life, and I dig it.