Everything you want in life has a price

I was at a leadership seminar just earlier and the guest speaker shared a very true thought.

Everything you want in life has a price. The only question is are you willing to pay the price to get it.

When you think about it, it is very true. Everything you wish for has a price that you have to pay in order to get it. In materialistic terms, such as a car, handphone, house, or even a book or shoe for the matter, you’d need to pay the price of the product in cash (or credit) in exchange for the goods.

But you may question, what about intangible wishes like getting a degree or education, what price would we be talking about here? If you take a short time and think back what you yourself had sacrificed to get your degree, you’ll begin to understand what the speaker meant. You see, there’s nothing free in life. That is just a matter of fact. In order to get our degrees, or any professional or educational certification, all of us have to sacrifice our time to study the subjects in order to pass the examinations.

Thus, everything comes with a price. Nothing, not even freedom. So now that we understand that everything has a price to pay, the only remaining question is if we are willing to pay the price to get what we want.

But most of the time, we fail to truly understand the price we have to pay to gain the things we want in life. Especially intangible things like freedom, having a stress free life, having all the time you want to spend with your family and even just wanting to sleep as long as you want.

What are the prices to get such thing in life. Since such things don’t come with price tags, it usually means we can’t buy them with money. Intangible prices are paid with intangibly. We have already understood that in the previous paragraphs. The main problem why so many people still aren’t going out there and pay the prices in order to get the the things that matters most in their lives is because many of us misdefine the prices we need to pay.

Most of the time, we assume that we need to sacrifice our jobs, our families, or even our time in order to get such things in life. Sometimes, we just simply take what other people say for granted and process them as facts even if they aren’t really a reliable source of information in the first place. If you ask someone who has never been able to spend extra time with his family members in his life, is it right to ask him how we could achieve the same thing? The only question I would ask this person would be what he did (if he even did anything at all) and make sure I don’t make the same mistakes as him, obviously so because he never did achieve what he wanted. Instead, I’d ask someone who has done it and ask him what’s the price he paid to get what he wanted.

After knowing the price from the right source, you then decide whether you are willing to pay it in order to achieve the same thing. It’s really just that simple.

But I realise that sometimes people know this yet still not decide to pay the price it takes to get them where they want to be. I suppose this could be because many cannot take delayed gratification. This is because often times, gaining freedom comes with the price of paying a certain small freedom to do what you like now in order to be able to do everything you want anytime you want much later. Logically, what you get later far outweigh what you have to pay now. Yet, the decision to make a difference in life is often an emotional decision and not a logical decision.

That brings me to the reason I chose to write this entry today. Most of the time, I would hear people who do not achieve success blaming their circumstances. Some might even blame their inability to be successful by giving the excuse of needing the sacrifice their time, family, and even religion! What blasphemy! In order for one to be successful, one would need to work hard, change their negative attitude, work on their character building, and even to learn and continue to learn to increase one’s knowledge.

Do you need to neglect your family needs in order to be successful? Would you be further from your religion? Ask anyone who is successful and they will tell you things are actually just the opposite.

Sometimes, we hear of stories where there are people who got really rich without paying any price or working very hard. Some who climbed up the corporate ladder by stepping on other’s back to achieve instant success. You might think that they didn’t pay any price at all in order to gain what they had. You might even think that they was given discounts! But if you think about it hard enough, you would realise that these people actually did pay a price for their choice and path towards success. They paid the price of not learning the true meaning of success and what it takes to be a truly successful person, not just the outside but also the insides. One who got instantly rich the easy way, such as joining in a scheme or winning a lottery would not have learnt what it really takes to earn money that continually flows in. They might not even learn to manage their money properly. And once they have lost every cent they have own, would they be able to gain it all back again? Probably not. But for those who paid the price of working hard and learning the means to truly be financially independant, if they lost everything, I’m sure they would be able to bounce back much more easily because they already have the knowledge.

The same applies for those who skips the process of becoming a successful person. A true leader is born not by doing all the right things, but by learning from failures and how to recover and get back up again. Therefore, those who step on other’s back actually paid the price of losing other’s trust and never gaining the real experiences that will make them true leaders. 

So, the next time you need to decide whether or not something is worth doing in order to get what you want, remember to check what is the price to pay for it and weigh it against the result or rewards for paying the price. Make sure it’s from the right source too. Then make your decision based on the facts. Just remember that there’s always a price to pay for everything you want in life. Nothing is free.