Is There a Cost in Opportunities ?

Is There a Cost in Opportunities ?

Interesting topic indeed:  Is There a Cost in Opportunities ?  Guess it's high time to clear up the air of some mix-ups and confusion because all along, the misconception is that opportunities are FREE for our taking.  No sirs, in real life, there is no such thing as a FREE LUNCH.  Doing one thing makes you sacrifice the opportunity to do something else of value.  But before I get tempted to talk a bit from an economics perspective, the fact is that OPPORTUNITY COST is the cost of NOT CHOOSING the next best alternative for your money, time or any resource.

That American aphorism "THERE AIN'T NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH".  The thing is, life is all about values and priorities.  You face trade-offs.  Life requires you to make choices among mutually exclusive alternatives.  Everytime you select something, you forfeit other alternatives and the benefits.

The COST of SOMETHING is what you will give up to get it.  This is opportunity cost.  Question is, you can do anything but not everything.  What will you sacrifice when you choose one option over the others ?  When multiple choices are available, the quality of any option cannot be assessed in isolation from its alternatives.  The PRICE YOU PAY [or the sacrifice you make or the benefits you give up] for doing what you've chosen to do instead of doing something else is an OPPORTUNITY COST.

In short, an OPPORTUNITY COST is the cost of passing up the opportunities that a different option would have afforded.  Many costs are calculated in terms of money.  Howeverm just because you don't have to spend money to do something does not imply that the options you face are without their costs.  For example, you don't have to spend money to go for a hike or watch a sunset.

Thing is, OPPORTUNITY COSTS apply to all our choices, big and small.  Opportunity cost is a concept of greater magnitude.  It is one of the simple concepts in social sciences that are difficult to master and tough to put into consistent practice.  We really need to learn to evaluate life choices via the lens of opportunity costs so that the stakes become clearer.  As we live in a world of scarcity and must therefore make choices, we cannot avoid regret since there are OPPORTUNITY COSTS for every choice we will make. Ultimately, we need to conclude that the BENEFITS we will reap from an opportunity is much bigger as compared to the cost of an opportunity❗❗❗