Dilemma story: Should I jog or not? - 02/24

This weekend, my wife and I went to the farm to fix the water pump. Since the farm is 2.5 hours drive away, a day goes into travelling to and fro from the house. Therefore, I was planning to do my weekly jog along with my wife on the jungle road.

However, we only became free from the water pump solution at 2 PM, and my wife was not in the mood to jog in the afternoon heat. Since it was a jungle trail, it was a Prisoners’ dilemma situation for me: 1. If I jog and let her walk alone for 15-20 minutes, she will get angry. 2. If I don’t jog, I will miss the jog on this beautiful forest road.

Suddenly, an insight from my school chapter helped. A spacecraft project manager from Earth was not getting a signal from the astronauts from a planet that was 4 hours radio signal away. His concern was that if he sends a “Hello” message, it would take 4 hours for the signal to be received by the astronauts and another 4 hours to return the message. When his mother heard this dilemma, she said, “Just go on sending continuous messages: 1. Hi, 2. Are you getting this message? If yes, reply, 3. There is a solar flare coming in 2 days, protect yourself.” This way, in one shot, the astronauts will get all the messages, and within 8 hours, the communication will be completed rather than many hours.

I applied this concept in a way that instead of running from point A to point B (which was 2 km away), I ran to and fro 0.25 km both ways, keeping my wife in the center as she was walking. This way, I was always within earshot distance and within her eyesight most of the time. I could complete my jogging of 4km crossing my wife 4 times, and she could enjoy the forest walk peacefully!

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