The Weight

A duty you have outgrown. Carry it, or set it down?

591 people have stood exactly here. 63 of them are still inside it — their capsules have not opened yet. The rest already know how it went.

55%would decide the same way again

15 mowhere the two paths cross

23 momedian time since deciding

The answer changes depending on when you ask

This is the finding that matters, and it is the reason a snapshot of opinion is misleading. Shortly after the decision, the people who kept carrying are happier. Years later, the people who set it down are — and by a wider margin.

Time since deciding	Set it down	Kept carrying
6 months	41% would do it again	59% would do it again
12 months	49% would do it again	56% would do it again
24 months	65% would do it again	49% would do it again
36 months	64% would do it again	58% would do it again
48 months	64% would do it again	50% would do it again

Regret about setting it down fades. Regret about carrying it accrues.

Where each path ended up

They chose	Would again	Mixed	Would not	Total
Set it down	156	49	71	276
Kept carrying	136	55	61	252

What they said once they knew

Written after the capsule opened — not while deciding.

“It survived without me, which was insulting and enormously freeing.”
Set it down · 66 months on

“I'd do it again. I'd also like someone to notice that I did.”
Kept carrying · 66 months on

“Nobody was angry. I'd been arguing with a version of them in my head for years.”
Set it down · 66 months on

Common questions

What usually happens to people who set it down?

In this archive, 63% of people who set it down said they would do it again when asked around four years later. At six months it was 41%. Regret about setting it down tends to fade as time passes.

Is it better to setting it down or carrying it?

Neither, universally — and the honest answer changes with time. Early on, kept carrying looks better (59% against 41% at six months). Later it reverses (63% against 58% at four years). The two lines cross at about 15 months.

How is this measured?

Every capsule records a decision and a confidence level before the outcome is known, then the person is asked afterwards whether they would decide the same way again. The percentages are Gaussian-smoothed over 528 answered capsules. Where too few sit under the kernel, no figure is shown rather than a noisy one.

Is this advice?

No. It is a record of what happened to other people, which is a different and more useful thing. Nobody here knows your situation.

You are about to decide something

Write down the real reason and how sure you are, before you know how it goes. In 30, 90 or 365 days it opens and asks you one question — and you find out whether your judgement was worth anything.

Seal a capsule