opportunity cost
Opportunity cost is very important to understand. In doing anything, there is the cost of the opportunities that you’re otherwise forsaking. If you’re working, you could be having fun instead. If you’re having fun, you could be working. So it brings out a multiplicative duality in all that we consider and do.
This extends far beyond most things that you would understand for yourself. And you can take it to varying degrees. I wanted to write about it as I was explaining to a friend recently that they were only considering the opportunity cost of leaving, when really they needed to consider the opportunity cost of staying.
To understand this, is to be unstoppable.
In all that we do, the way that we are – we reason with ourselves that we are a certain way, that we do a certain thing, that we decided something or something was ok. In this case, we were talking about jobs, and money as cost. What if you stayed until the end of the year, you knew you would get a million dollars? Most would not leave. You would stay, right?
But if you believed in yourself, and you thought you could make 2 million in the same time, you would quit.
An oft-remembered conversation during college I had with my closest friends was one where we reasonably assumed that we could pursue something, and that we would potentially payoff $50 million each, and we walked away.
Now looking back, we want to say that we were stupid, but I’m not so sure.
Anytime you’re doing anything, you could be doing something different. Know well what is worthwhile, and know what will let you have the most fun. In all things, intensity, whether business or pleasure.
