Optimal Vegging

So, I did a fair bit of vegging this weekend, occasionally interrupted by productivity. I actually finished reading one of my economics textbooks, albeit the shortest one. Is there an optimal amount of vegging in one's life? Well, it depends on preferences. How much does one value leisure compared to other pursuits. I don't have a job, so I can't use it for comparison, but I could compare it with academics. Let's day that one can earn better grades by spending more time studying (probably true). Let us also say that studying yields diminishing returns such that the more one studies, the lower the marginal improvement in grades. Let's also say that there are diminishing returns in leisure as well. The more one slacks off, the less marginal benefit they get from vegging.

... You know what, trying to justify wasting time through economics is silly. In any case, it all boils down to preferences, and I seem to exhibit a strong preference for the immediate gratification that vegging brings compared to the uncertain future benefits that studying would bring. Yeah, I do value good grades, but the return on studying is quite uncertain. Studying entails a lot of risk on my part since the benefits are very much unclear. This is because I have worked hard in past, only to do badly in classes, and other other times, worked very little and down quite well. Actually, the latter is what I experienced mainly in high school.

Actually, this leads into something that I learned in another economics class dealing with economic development. There are five reasons why a society (or maybe an individual will choose not to invest/study):

1. No surplus - i.e. no extra time to study because all time is required to be spent on other things.
   
2. Not worth it/no point in investing - i.e. no benefit from higher grades.
3. Risk - uncertain gains from investing, high standard deviation from mean outcome.
   
4. Property Rights, or lack thereof
5. Financial intermediation, or lack thereof

So, the last two can be disregarded since they are not relevant to the discussion of vegging. So, I've already talked about #3. Is there benefit from higher grades? Well, let me put it this way. If you have a 3.5 CGPA, then working a bit harder could push you over 3.7 and earn you a scholarship. If you are earning a 2.8 CGPA, and you could earn a 3.0 by working harder, would you work harder? What if there are no benefits from earning a 3.0 that earning a 2.8 doesn't already have. Would you study more or spend your time having fun? Obviously, you wouldn't waste the time studying more. As it stands right now, unless I earn all A's, my CGPA probably won't change much. Of course, it could go down as well... Going back to the explanation though, the first doesn't really apply to me because I'm not required to spend all my time vegging, though extracurricular things are eating into my time.

So, it seems that I waste a lot of time because there are uncertain returns on studying. I would need to spend a lot of time studying to increase my grades a bit, and the benefit is uncertain. Moreover, I'm pretty risk averse, so I go for the certain returns of vegging rather than the uncertain returns of studying. Furthermore, where my CGPA is right now, there isn't a lot of benefit from studying more. I've fallen too far to ever qualify for the Open Scholarship again. Plus, I've already got so many credits under my belt that my previous classes grades weigh very heavily in the calculation of CGPA.

So there you have it. My level of vegging is probably in some sort of competitive equilibrium. Of course, complications could arise. Two potentially unbalancing unlikely scenarios are me finding a job (that would require actually making the effort to apply) and me getting a girlfriend.

R