the paradox of choice

you can't optimize your life through consumer purchases and I'd like to stop trying

hi all,

it’s been a while! I have been spending the last few weeks taking it super easy and also preparing for my next (and hopefully final) surgery this coming Friday: breast reconstruction. definitely looking forward to having boobs and I really appreciate everyone’s kind words, although it sucks to have to go through the whole thing all over again. I’m hoping I’ll be feeling up for sending at least a quick little newsletter in the next few weeks, but if you don’t hear from me, it’s because I’m focusing on healing!

a note on paying for my newsletter: I paywall every newsletter anywhere between 2-4 weeks after I send it, so if you are a free subscriber, you will get to read (almost) everything if you check the substack app timely or your email ever. I feel grateful that people are willing to pay to read my newsletter — it is work after all!!!! — and I still want you all to know that I am committed to keeping 90% of this free for all to read. but I am curious to hear — is there specific subscriber-only stuff you’d like to see? I’d like to offer something to thank you for paying, and to incentivize others to do so. (this poll is open to paying subscribers and non, so please fill it out!)

and again, if you have the means, please support my writing for the cost of a cup of coffee in donald trump’s america. for transparency, I am going to use the income from paid subscribers to invest back into my newsletter, and am in talks with a graphic designer to spruce it up, so hopefully that will be rolled out soon! this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time but hasn’t made sense financially, but now it (sort of…) does! so thank you for making that possible.

love,

your friend Mindy 

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my childhood friend is caught between two big choices: she currently lives in south philly and is trying to decide whether to stick around here or move back to the very sweet town where we grew up. a pro and con list is almost impossible to parse; there are infinite good things and bad things about both options. I’ve been trying to push her to just make a decision — I really believe that whichever one she chooses will make her happy — but I also get why it’s so difficult. when you have two good options, how do you decide which to pick?

for a while my husband and I were talking about moving to a different part of the city — mostly to have a bigger house and backyard, and to be closer to nature and the park that my husband likes to do his trail running in. but it didn’t make sense financially so we decided to shelve the idea, and now I think it’s been permanently suspended. this is for a lot of reasons — in our current home, my husband is able to take a 15 minute bus ride to and from work; our beloved daycare is very close by; we love our neighbors; we’re excited about our local elementary school; we’re close to a bunch of playgrounds; we live in walking distance from a lot of our friends and restaurants and shops. the biggest reason is financial, of course — buying a new house right now would mean spending 3-4x a month compared to what we spend now, which would almost be impossible, making us feel like we don’t have a choice. but all of the other little things add up to big things too, and luckily we feel pretty content about sticking around. but mostly I feel lucky that we aren’t in a position to make a decision; it’s mostly been made for us.