All avenues have their price. No action is without its cost.
It’s not just the price you pay to engage with it in the first place… and perhaps even see it through to the end.
There’s also the price of the path untravelled.
Because no matter what we’re doing, where we’re going, or what constraints we’re operating under, there’s always a choice.
We don’t make our decisions in a vacuum. Everything we choose from is held and judged in relation to everything else.
Each time we’re called to select our next move, we stand at a fork in the road.
Each choice is one branch among many. Other routes lead to other destinations, revealing different sights along the way.
To choose one fork in the road is to disavow the others.
Standing where we are, it’s hard to tell where each path will lead.
All we can do is make the best possible decision we can with the information we have. But we can never truly know where the road leads until we’ve already walked it.
Hindsight is the ultimate equaliser, and the ultimate consolation prize.
It arrives too late to make a direct difference to the circumstances that created it.
It’s only by holding its lessons close and bringing them to bear on the choices ahead that we can extract any value from it.
One of the most valuable gifts hindsight grants us is an understanding of what pursuits were worthwhile, and what ones were a net negative.
All opportunities are created unequal.
Some goals enrich our lives merely by working towards them. Reaching the end of that path might give us rewards, but the journey itself gives us reward enough – such that attaining the ultimate prize is a nice-to-have, not a requirement.
Other goals are not so blessed.
The reward they offer might be tantalising, but the sacrifices required to get there – or the luck – are greater than we can afford.
So, before we set off along a course, it’s worth asking…
What’s the cost of pursuing the opportunity in front of you?
Not just what it takes from us to chase it – the doors it closes, too.
When we choose one path, the others are cut off. Any rewards they might have granted us – either in their culmination or along the way – vanish.
By doing our best to accurately envision the true price of our pursuit before we begin, we stand a better chance at avoiding the bitter taste of hindsight.
A lesson learned from our own experience is hard-won…
But a lesson learned from avoiding an experience hurts far less.