Whenever you make a choice, you are elevating one thing at the expense of another. If I decide to work an extra hour of freelance rather than go to the gym in the morning, I am making a value statement: $ + experience > health (in this case). And at times, that’s a fair trade-off. It’s more problematic when I spend an hour browsing the internet for nothing in particular rather than going to the gym. Then it’s comfort + ease > health. And if you consider that it’s my comfort we’re talking about vs health that will hopefully let me live longer and take care of my wife, it becomes me > my wife.
I believe that everything exists along a sliding scale, and small choices are the same as big choices, just with less opportunity. So when I make that me > my wife decision at the level of 60 minutes of CNN.com, it’s laying the groundwork for making the same calculation at a much bigger level later on.
Ultimately, as bad as me > my wife is, the more severe choices I make every day are me > God.
I like to live as if there’s no trade-off. I spend an hour online, so what? I’ll make it up on the other end. But it’s not true; there’s always a trade-off. I’ve never found it to be the case that a poor decision doesn’t come around and bite me in the end.
So what are you sacrificing, and to what are you sacrificing it?