The Law of Diminishing Return

“Diminishing returns is the decrease in the marginal output of a production process as the amount of a single factor of production is incrementally increased, while the amounts of all other factors of production stay constant.” – Wikipedia.

                I have to confess that I’m not good at Economy, nor at memorizing theories. But here is the thing, I prefer understand than memorizing things. And usually, it is easier for me to understand or even memorize unique thing or thing that I experience in the real life because I’ve already lived it and do or see those things million times. In this case, like what I said before, I’m not good at Economy, even it’s hard for me to understand those theories that my teacher and books had said. Except for one thing..

                ... yes, except for one thing.

                The only theory I fully understand on Economy is The Law of Diminishing Return. I remember that it was the material for the first grade on Senior High School. So, the sentences I quoted above was what The Law of Diminishing Return all about. Honestly it is hard for me to comprehend this theory on the first place. But lucky me because back then I got a really good economy teacher who was patiently explain this theory through a very simple way. And since then, I know that this theory was more than just an Economy theory. So, I will re-explain what my teacher said about The Law of Diminishing Return, and I hope that you’ll understand!

                This theory can be easily understood through 3 steps. So the first step is the most productive period. Well, since I know the word “productive” is always connected to Economy thing, I’m gonna give you a real example in our life because through this example I believe that you’ll understand better. Okay, so imagine if you love meatlover pizza a lot that you think you can’t live without it. Back then you were rarely to buy meatlover pizza because you had no enough money to buy it. Time flies and you started to make a lot of money. Since then your life changed and you started to buy meatlover pizza everyday because it tasted so damn good and you feel like there’s nothing better than eating meatlover pizza.

                One day, two days, three days, four.. five... six.. seven days you spent eating pizza, meatlover pizza precisely, exact the same taste, the same flavour, and you ate it everyday in 7 days. You started to get bored with pizza, even though you know that it tasted so good. But you just can’t eat it anymore because you’ve already ate it everyday, and you wanted to taste anything else. This is what we called the diminishing returns period.

                The last step was called the negative returns. You’ve reached the edge, the phase when your love for meatlover pizza has ended. You started to stop eating pizza, and you decided to try and eat anything new and better. Your love for pizza has decreased slowly and slowly.

                Well I hope that you’ll get my point in this because I realized that this theory, or maybe this case, isn’t only can be implemented on economy things like demanding, purchasing things etc. But I believe, we, all of people, all of us, we also experience this kind of The Law of Diminishing Return thing in almost our everyday life.

                As human being who never satisfied with all the things we’ve already had, we will never avoid the fact that we are very easy to get bored with things just because we want to expect or receive something better than what we have and get everyday.

                It is not that easy to make a lot of money for buying those pizzas. It needs a lot of struggles, sacrifices, and no wonder how many time and energies that we waste to put all of our hard effort just to make those money. But yes, when you’ve already got what you really wanted after you fight for it, you think that you’ve reached the edge. You think you could get more and you got bored of those things that you’ve received everyday, every single day, even if it is what you wanted since day one.

                When it comes to the diminishing returns step, every effort that we’ve made, we just forget all of them. All we know is that we want to get another better thing for our satisfication. What we don’t understand is that, the truth, we – as human being – we will never satisfy with what we’ve already had.

                I’ve been thinking about these things like thousand of times. Yes, I know, I did it too. I mean as normal human being of course I’ve ever felt this case before. Like for the example when we are on school days and there are a lot of tasks to do usually we want some days off just to relax our mind from school life. But when it comes to the holiday phase, I believe that first second third day or maybe the first week of your holiday feel like heaven on earth. But as the second week, third week, etc and all we do was nothing, we will complain why this holiday takes a long time, why it is so boring, and we miss to go to school etc. Yes, human being, human being is the most complicated creature in this world. Confusing, but it is true – because I feel it too.

                Okay my point is that here, in my opinion, we as human being, we still can avoid the theory of The Law of Diminishing Return itself. So, when you are already thinking that OMG why this writing is so true or maybe wow how can the theory of economy can be appropriately implemented in my life, this writing isn’t done yet. The point is that we have to change our mindset. Maybe other people have another solution for this case, but for me it is about how we fill or being creative with what we’ve already had.

                For the example in my example above I’ve stated about buying meatlover pizza, well you still can buy another pizza, don’t you? There are a lot of flavour like barbeque pizza, american pizza, mozarella pizza, etc. Or we can just buy pizza for the example once every week – because I know that you don’t want to get fat and some health problems because of eating pizza everyday like obesity etc. There are a lot that you can do, right?

                And for another example for your holiday time, it is all about how you fill your holiday with such beneficial activities like for the example you start to learn new things, start to exercise, start to redecorate your room, writing on your blog, cover new music, etc (that’s what I do by the way lol). I believe that you won’t get bored for having a long holiday – the thing that you used to like and expect back then.

                Or, in this case this is about how people in relationship. Maybe these 2 persons have already got bored because they do the same thing everyday, they meet up everyday, etc. Disclaimer, couples are so easy to get bored because of their routines, so it is fragile for them to experience this diminishing returns thing, in this is actually dangerous because maybe they could find the new one. Well you can avoid this like do different things everyday, don’t meet up everyday (but also not too rarely), well they can do their hobby for example, or etc. The thing is don’t give up on each other just because you feel like you’ve reached your diminishing returns point. Because your lover isn’t thing, she / he is a human being and you can’t just equal them to product and use The Law of Diminishing Return to treat them.

                I think that it is all. I hope that it could be something useful – not only for buying new things, but also for treating people around us. Because everything that we do to people, it matters.

 You told me that the point here is that we need to make moment. All the everyday’s life that I gave, it just makes you reached your diminishing returns point. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to ask. Maybe this simple question help : why do I never get bored with that? And why you do? You think that it’s no need to give such thing that you’ve fought before, because we will reach our diminishing return in the end. I can’t stand, why can I just be you? Why can I just being a normal human being person who can easily get bored with things I have? Why can’t we as human being avoid those diminishing returns part? Why can’t we just search for another flavour of pizza that we usually eat? Why we have to stuck in meatlover pizza if we can do barbeque pizza? I just don’t understand. I just don’t – NN