A Model for Life

17 December 2009

Its nearly two weeks since Todd gave me my first apprenticeship task:

Assignment: To logically model an individual’s life from the perspective of a parent instructing their child guidelines on how to make decisions to maximize happiness.

Requirements: Your model of a “Life” can be as extensive or granular as you wish to take it. There is generally no wrong answer, other that it must reflect reality. You will be expected to defend your model and the business rules you create.

Your model must take into to account (at minimum):

• Desires
• Needs
• Relationships
• Finances
• A State of well-being (happiness)
• An unforeseen disaster

My son will be 2 on Monday. Its been amazing to watch him grow up and see him develop into a real character. When I think back to those first few weeks, I can say exactly what he needed and what made him happy then.

So long as he was warm, dry and fed and he had his mum he was happy - he was also mostly asleep.

Now its a different story. He still needs to be warm, dry and fed, but its no longer enough. He has to be entertained or challenged. He needs to see all the significant people in his life (coming home from work to excited shrieks of “Daddy, daddy” never gets old). He loves to visit his favourite places, play with favourite toys and watch his favourite DVDs. His life has become much more complex, and what makes him happy has followed suit.

This is how I’m going to approach this problem. I’m going to try to model a life from the point of view of a baby initially and see how it will evolves with time. I’ll continue to record my progress here.