buy / sell / trade

everything's gotta be such a trade-off, doesn't it?

i'll give you my headache for a pain-free evening of insomnia.

take my boring dry sandwich for your aromatic curry that makes my stomach furious with me.

hand over your $4 and i'll show you a book that cost me $14 but i'm disinterested in and unable to return.

when you think about it, why is this a surprise? everything has an innate value. we put forth work/effort/sacrifice/risk to earn each dollar. once that money is ours, so is the decision of how it'll be spent. we can't just sit on the piggy, day in and out, not ever making a decision. this applies not only to money, but to any choice--the logic is the same. this for that; that for this. in economic terms, this is essentially opportunity cost.

as theoretical situations are not rooted in any substance and are purely abstract, we can't assess the "what if" in any sort of productive way. we will go mad with regret and frustration. but there is some peace, i believe, in seeing all decisions--no matter the scale--as having the potential to either reap a favorable return or to short-change you. yeah, they may not all be winners, but being slumped up in an old armchair with a tall glass of kahlua and milk waiting for decisions to make themselves isn't going to send you anywhere worth going, except maybe the toilet. there is a certain beauty and excitement to any risk--not knowing which way it'll go is part of what keeps us invested in our lives in a truly stimulating way. you know you can't always lose, and the wins give us such high peaks that our memories of the losses become hazier and less significant.

but the ups and downs should not be blind to cognition and can't always be as simple as a coin toss. decision-making is one of the few things you can control regardless of your rank, bank, face, place... you get it. this notion is endlessly empowering, yet i'd venture to assume most people completely forget. at this time more than ever, when the economy is less than a winning horse, we are at the nauseatingly proverbial crossroads more often than we ever expected to be, yet we are rarely forced into a corner. isn't there always a choice of some sort? sure, some are more glamorous than others, some more extreme, some more mundane. but stop thinking that the only roads allowing you access are the one straight ahead or slightly off to the right. sharpen your #2 pencil and start drawing the map around you if you have to, but do it.

don't be afraid of the trade-off.

turn it on.