Say Never

Illuminating the cost of the unseen

The police cruiser slowed as we turned into a small city park, empty except for benches and swings swaying gently in the breeze. I was on a ride-along for a journalism class, notebook ready, not sure what we were looking for. The officer parked, then gestured toward the thick, eight-foot hedges bordering the park—an effort by the city a few years earlier to beautify the area. But the lush greenery, he explained, hid a darker reality: it had become an unintended refuge for drug use and prostitution. Beauty had come at a hidden cost—safety. Recognizing this trade-off, the officer, who had grown up nearby, confronted the problem himself, armed only with clippers.

Focused on the noble goal of beautifying the parks, few city officials suspected the greenery would give rise to crime. Opportunity costs fly under the radar because they’re invisible by definition, yet they often leave a disproportionate impact. The economist  Frédéric Bastiat said about opportunity costs,  “What is unseen is often more important than what is seen." Everyday people are just as susceptible. When pursuing degrees, we carefully consider the cost of tuition, but rarely account for the cost of not working. When buying a house, we fixate on the listing price, but overlook the time and energy that homeownership demands.

Looking back on my education at 35, my decision to pursue a career in software engineering instead of journalism came with life-altering opportunity costs. I could have gone in either direction. I started coding just for fun at 11 years old, tinkering with JavaScript in Windows Notepad until it became one of my favorite pastimes. At the same time, I had always loved telling nonfiction stories—the idea of traveling for work and meeting all kinds of people had a strong pull on me. After college, I applied to an eclectic mix of software companies, small magazines, and newspapers. My aspirations were coding in big tech or writing for The New Yorker—a pie-in-the-sky goal. Software engineering became an easy choice—the start-up Mobiquity was the only company willing to take a chance on me.

The first and most obvious opportunity cost was financial. At 24, I first heard the quote by Francis Bacon: "Money is a great servant but a bad master." I tried to live by it—spend as little time as possible thinking about money, and never let it define me. Still, working in big tech made that hard. At first, money ruled me through frugality: desperate to save after college, I once considered hanging shower curtains as window dressing instead of buying actual curtains. Later, a few lucky stock payouts ruled me again—this time through brand names and status. Only recently have I found a better balance. If I had pursued reporting instead, I suspect I would have had less money—but also less reason to think about it at all.

Working in big tech in Seattle, I stayed mostly within the social bubble of tech. My brief stint in investigative journalism challenged me to talk to artists, scientists, police officers, farmers, and priests. The contrast became clear recently when I joined a local group of game developers made up of artists, writers, and independent programmers. The group chose to ban discussions of AI in its Discord channel, citing ethical concerns about plagiarism. Coming from a world where AI is unapologetically championed, the debate felt like a window into a different world.

Yesterday I celebrated my 35th birthday, and it occurred to me that opportunity costs contribute to the emotional weight of growing older. The alternative career I could have pursued, the athletic achievement I once strived for, the country I had wished to visit—time slowly begins to shut the door on these passive aspirations. Reflecting on opportunity costs might seem like regret, or like second-guessing our choices. On the contrary, deliberately acknowledging the options we said "no" to only deepens the legitimacy of our "yes"es.

With age, I own the opportunity costs of saying "no" to journalism, appreciating the life that unfolded as a result. I met my wife, a product manager, in Seattle, along with a group of best friends. (Notably, all the groomsmen at my wedding were software engineers, but code isn’t all we talked about.) I was able to help my mom move to Seattle, and I enjoy seeing close family often. Collectively, we have three dogs—a black lab, a yellow lab, and a labradoodle—who keep our home lively.

Doors inevitably close with time, but we can shut them with intention to appreciate the ones we opened. Some people say "never say never." 

Say “never.”