I haven’t posted because I’ve been wrestling. With myself. Which is harder in practice than one might imagine. Cue the list of ambiguous hypothetical questions!

If you have a job that you love, but a “better offer” comes along that demands immediate attention unveils from the ether, what do you do?

If the “better offer” is guaranteed to make you clinically insane but will also pay off your credit card debt faster than you can say “I think I’ll blow my rent check at Bluefly“, what do you do?

If the job that you love just gave you a shiny new laptop and your desk chair faces floor-to-ceiling windows, but the “better offer” mandates that you spend a month out of every year in -12 degree weather eating bad food in rest stops, what do you do?

If the job that you love might pay off in 3-4 years, with lateral mobility and life insurance, but the “better offer” guarantees both credit and salary until 2011, what do you do?

If the “better offer” is the job you used to have, but the job that you love is where you dreamed of working when you had your old job, what do you do?

Last week, I told my bosses: I’m going to North Dakota. Then I went to my car and cried. Then I thought about what kind of coat I should buy for the weather, and I got happy again.