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Opportunity Cost

Opportunity cost is the cost of passing up the next best alternative when making a decision. Economics textbooks often cover opportunity “cost” in terms of time and money, but I’m going to discuss it in broader terms to include fulfillment and satisfaction.

For example, if you play video games for three hours, the opportunity cost of that choice is the money you could have earned by working instead, or the enjoyment you could have received from an alternate activity such as biking in the park.

Busy people often have to turn down offers and requests because the opportunity cost of accepting is high. Donald Trump would probably turn down a speaking engagement that paid him a mere $10,000. It isn’t worth his time to accept. He has many better alternatives to choose from, including much more lucrative speaking engagements.

Opportunity cost is easy to understand when you’re choosing between a few clearly defined alternatives, and the payoff from each alternative is obvious. If you’re choosing between a few different options for what to do on Saturday night, or how to spend $500, it’s relatively easy to predict the probable outcomes of the various options, and choose the one that feels the best.

But most of the time, the true opportunity costs of our choices aren’t obvious. There are an infinite number of possibilities for what we could do with our time and money, most of which we never think of. Only in hindsight is it clear what our other options were – and by then it’s too late to reverse history.

We also have ingrained habits and ways of thinking that program us behaving according to certain patterns. Some people are home-bodies and spend most of their leisure time at home. Some people keep themselves busy with a razor sharp focus on their work, constantly working on one project or another to try to get ahead. Others are persistent penny-pinchers, always looking to save a few dollars here and there, spending a lot of their time browsing the internet for coupons and deals.

These habits often serve us well because they align with many of our preferences and desires. Habits also cut out the need to constantly think about what we want to do, and put our behavior and choices on auto-pilot. But they also have potentially high opportunity costs, causing us to miss desirable new experiences and opportunities.

If I could go back in time, I would choose to do some globe-trotting during the summer between graduate school and starting my first day job, instead of spending it tutoring and working on yet another research project. The thought of traveling never crossed my mind until my friends later told me what a great time they had on the other side of the world while I was working in an office.

My habitual way of thinking, centered around being productive and earning income, caused me to miss a terrific window of opportunity to travel while young and free of career and family responsibility.

Everything we do has an opportunity cost – there’s always an alternative use of our time and money. It’s as unavoidable as breathing or aging. You might think that the goal in life, therefore, is to minimize the opportunity cost of our actions by always choosing the best possible alternative at all times.

The truth is, we don’t have crystal clear foresight, and it’s impossible to always know beforehand whether we’re making the best possible choices. Even if we could see the consequences of any possible choice beforehand, it would still be overwhelming to have so many choices to consider.

Still, ignoring the consequences of our choices is likely to lead to regret, and wishing we’d done things differently.

Fortunately, there’s a much simpler way to go about your life while making sure you don’t miss out on the important opportunities to expand your horizons and have fulfilling experiences.

If you agree that the purpose of your life includes growth, the expansion of your consciousness through a variety of experiences, and building positive relationships with others, then we can define opportunity cost as follows:

Opportunity cost is the value, in terms of new experience, personal growth, and connection with others, that we miss out on by choosing one alternative over another.

This leads to our next logical conclusion – that the best choices in life, in other words, those with the lowest opportunity cost – share the following characteristics:

• They require some degree of courage and going outside of your comfort zone
• They are new experiences that contrast from your normal routine
• They involve connection with other people

It may well be impossible to always choose the best alternative, but by following these rules of thumb, you will usually make a good, if not very good or the best, choice:

1. Choose a new experience over something you’ve done a million times.

If you’re a home-body who spends 9 out of 10 evenings at home watching TV, and you hear that there’s a local street festival going on, then get out to the street festival. By staying home, you’re missing out on new experiences and opportunities to connect with new people. In this case, going out probably has the lower opportunity cost, because it’s a novel experience, and the next best alternative is staying in and watching TV – something you do quite frequently anyways.

Generally speaking, the opportunity cost of missing out on a regular routine in your leisure time is quite low.

2. Pay attention to what your peers are doing.

The idea of traveling abroad after grad school isn’t something that would have just come to me. I found out I missed that opportunity after the fact from my peers. If you don’t want to miss out on the best opportunities out there, then pay attention to what your friends and peers are doing. That doesn’t mean that you should become a follower, but that you should keep track of what others are doing and consider whether a similar experience would be desirable for you.

If you don’t have many friends or peers whom you’re connected with, then for you, getting connected with others is an action step in its own right. 

3. Ask yourself, “If I had all the freedom in the world, what would I choose to do?”

We tend to be boxed in by our own habitual ways of thinking, instead of considering all the various possibilities of things we could do. To break free of habitual thinking, just ask yourself the simple question, “If I had all the freedom in the world, what would I choose to do?” Let yourself daydream about all the experiences you’d like to enjoy this lifetime. Perhaps you’d like to climb Mount Everest, or go on a journey through the Amazon. Maybe you’d like to train as a chef in New York City, or learn to speak Mandarin.

The things that you come up with are guideposts as to the types of experiences you should strive for. Don’t worry if what you’re daydreaming about isn’t realistic. It may take you some practice to be able to daydream in the first place – most of us aren’t used to doing it.

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As you go about living your life, stop occasionally to ask yourself, “What’s the opportunity cost of the choices I’m making? Am I foregoing better experiences by sticking with my usual routine?” Try new experiences, push yourself out of your normal routine, and allow yourself to daydream. Live in a way that when you look back in 5, 10 or 20 years, you’ll be proud of yourself 

11 Powerful Motivational Thoughts for You

Please do yourself the honor of slowing down for a few minutes to read these motivational thoughts. I promise it will be well worth your while. Take a few deep and clearing breaths, too – did you ever stop in your tracks and notice how short and shallow your breathing can be when it's go-go-go all the time?

Breathe deep, enjoy these 11 powerful motivational thoughts, and if you feel they are worthwhile, please share this page with others.

Motivational Thought #1: Your Goals, the Doubters, the Reality

When it comes to your greatest goals, if anyone tells you that you shouldn’t, that you couldn’t, remember that all they are really saying is that they don’t believe they could.

Never let the doubters drag you down.

If in those quiet times you can see the goal in your mind’s eye, if you can feel the joy of it throughout your being, then it is already yours, and it is now just a matter of working through the emotional barriers like fear, impatience, worry, and guilt to bring your goals, your reality, to light.

Motivational Thought #2: The Greatest Form of Strength

Love yourself by slowing down a few moments and visualizing this: what if, no matter what anyone else said or did, you responded with kindness? See it, feel it. If you were kind no matter what, are your fears that some people would walk all over you really justified?

Remember, kindness is not synonymous with giving up or giving in. You can stand your ground and be kind at the same time, and in fact achieve far more in doing so. Kindness is not weakness, it is the greatest form of strength. Do your best to try it, and watch the difference it makes.

Motivational Thought #3: How Do You Treat Yourself?

Listen for twenty minutes, two hours, or a day to how you treat yourself. Listen to the things you say to yourself, the things you expect of yourself, and how you respond to yourself when you don’t achieve them. Do you act like that and talk like that and expect like that to anyone else you love? Your children, your parents, your spouse, your best friend?

Stop being so mean to you. You are a good person worthy of your love, respect, understanding, and forgiveness.

Treat yourself as you would like to be treated by others.

Motivational Thought #4: Ha!


Here is one of the wisest and noblest goals worthy of your highest priority and your energy that will enable your potential, yourYou, to burst forth: commit to laughing more.
Kindergarteners laugh an average of 300 times per day. Adults an average of just 17 times per day. But nothing got any less funny since you were in kindergarten, if you look at it the right way. Indeed, things only got funnier.
Create an abundance of laughter experiences in your life. Watch funny movies, hang out with funny people, read funny motivational quotes, listen to comedians in your car, make stupid faces at yourself in the mirror. Nothing could be healthier.

Motivational Thought #5: This Baby is a Jerk
Have you ever looked at a newborn baby and thought, “This baby is such a major jerk?” Of course not. Babies, along with many of those on the brink of death, are the human beings closest to the good and perfect spirit at the core of all of us.
Whenever it feels like someone’s words or actions are irritating or harming you, if you ever feel disgust or hatred for another, try to open your eyes wider to see them as the newborn they still are. The rust and crust of years and decades of unrecognized and unresolved emotions may have layered upon that newborn, making him or her confused, annoying, mean, or malicious, but always try to see the newborn.
This is no excuse to enable their words or actions if indeed they are offensive or destructive, nor an excuse for you not to work toward positively countering their words or actions if that is what you know you must do.
But first, it will help you make sure you aren’t giving their words and actions more power over your heart, your mind, and your actions than they deserve. Second, it will help you keep seeing people and the world for what they are, which is flawed in their transitory sense, but beautiful and perfect in their essence.
This will make all the difference in how you act, versus react, in this world.

Motivational Thought #6: What If I Switched You?
If I could take your consciousness, and the things you currently spend your energy on doing, and the way you currently think and respond to things, and drop that you into any other living human being, do you really believe you would be any more or less happy in their body and circumstances than you are in your own?
Consider that deeply. What does it mean?

Motivational Thought #7: So You Wanna Be Rich?
Aside from those who are so desperately poor that they may be hungry every day and have no roof over their head, there is no correlation between wealth and happiness. Studies confirm this, and I have worked extensively with both those financially poor and rich, and I second those studies. Lottery winners who end up far more miserable after winning than before have become a cliché.
Slow down and take the time to become aware of yourself, and therefore of your real goals. Know what you are willing to spend your real most precious resource – your energy – on.
Will you spend it chasing after external illusions of change and comfort like money, mates, and mansions, only to be exponentially frustrated if and when you get them but feel no greater (and likely less) peace and joy for it?
Or will you spend it on building your wisdom and clearing through theemotional barriers like fear, anger, and guilt that are the only thing preventing you from recognizing and doing what you are meant to, from meeting who you are meant to meet, and from allowing what is meant to come into your world to come in … so that you can experience the wealth of peace and happiness already inside you?

Motivational Thought #8: Let the World Open to You
You don’t lack anything. The more you struggle against this truth, the more people and the world seem to close to you and the more miserable you feel. The more aware of this truth you strive to become, the more the wealth of people and the world opens to you.

Motivational Thought #9: You
You are a miracle. This life is remarkable, and you have remarkable gifts inside you – various forms of beautiful brilliance - to give to other lives.

Motivational Thought #10: You, Continued
You are amazing.

Motivational Thought #11: From Me to You
Always remember that you are loved.

Motivation in Life

A Motivated Life

Versus a lack of Motivation

Someone who can see their life in front of them as a picture of success will usually work toward that picture and find a way to make it happen as they progress with their motivated life.  They may have to change their course a few times, and even change the rules; but these people will strive to reach the end because they have their mind-set for success.  These people know who they are, what they want to achieve, and they have a plan to get there.  They are not waiting for any instant gratification; they in it for the long-haul.  Their motivation is not passing; it is constant and they aren’t afraid to spend many hours working for results.   They know that it takes not only physical work, but mental work keeping their mind-set on powerful solutions to complete what they have begun.

On the other hand, most of us have seen those people who seem to be lazy, (sorry, just can’t think of a better word); without a sprig of motivation in their life. Those of us who have learned that without motivation life cannot exist wiithout certain conditions being met.   We want to scream at these people mentioned and say; “get off your butt.”  After getting on your feet, lift yourself out of pity, and start growing your life.  Your life is like a flower garden; you must cultivate, plant or sow, enrich with the right material, give it the necessary fuel and then watch it grow.  Motivation is what success is made of.  There is no success in life without some motivation.

“Your life, your marriage, your children, you career, nor any other part of your life will ever be fulfilled, empowered, or anything above “make do” without motivation.”  Motivation is the basic ingredient for growing, building, and keeping our life stable, enlightened, and successful.

The Meaning of Motivation

Thesaurus gives this definition of motivation:  ambition, inspiration, desire, action, hunger, motive, provocation, push, stimulation, and many other words.

If we were to break down each of these meanings; we would more than likely always come back to the same meaning of motivation.  If we have no ambition or inspiration; our desires are few, and we do not hunger for anything but physical food to curb our body hunger, and we are lacking motivation.  If we are not inspired to achieve, do not have a provocation, we will not push and have any actions that will bring about significant results for success.

If we have ambitions, we are motivated by our ambitions to become knowledgeable and we work at finding a way; any way to make our aspirations come true.  This applies to family, work/career, and spirituality.  For all important things in our life we must cultivate that which we already have, and find other ways to enrich, seek to fulfill, and rise to that plateau we are searching for.

 Every human’s life does not always manifest an inbred, natural characteristic of motivation, and that can be from negative, unseen and unwanted pursuits in life. Some of which they brought on themselves and some people have suffered traumatic experiences for which they had no control over. These experiences may have altered their drive or initiative to succeed, by paralyzing them with fear.  There are times that these kinds of life things stifle life even when you are pushing to keep up with the performance.

Life is a Performance

Play your life as if no one were looking....

Life is a performance as someone is always watching, and that is a fact. Why would we not understand then that our motivation/drive/actions will decide the applause when the curtain comes down?  No, we do not try to meet our goals and ambitions for the applause from others; we do it for ourselves; but there is nothing wrong with feeling the great pleasure of having done something worthwhile.  After all; if you achieved something extraordinary; you deserve recognition because you worked at some point when you really wanted to sit on the couch and sip lemonade. 

When we see someone who had their motivation and ambitions sapped right out of them by certain unpleasant circumstances; yet they have conquered the best they can; this is a deep seeded purpose for living life at its fullest, regardless. The saying that anything worth having is worth working for; is the truest truth of all. 

On the other hand, when we see healthy, intelligent, and normal people wasting their life and time with excuses; there is just not any excuse that justifies this behavior.  If you are anything like most people you will sometimes struggle with making sure you keep up momentum regardless of how you feel.   Therefore when you see people who could care less; you want to start a campaign and carry a flag that says; “you will only have as much love, family, friends, money and success as you put forth the effort to have.”  Motivation is not something that is given to anyone free of charge; we must work at it.  It is like all things in life; if you make yourself motivated long enough, and keep striving, you will at some point meet your dreams. Goals are acquired by motivation from the same seed that the purpose of action originated.

"Work, live, play, dance and be motivated as if no one were looking."

Motivational Quotes

“We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence therefore, is not an act but a habit.” –Aristotle

 “You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind.” – Author Unknown

 “The best way out is always through.”  -  Robert Frost

 “Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.” 

      - William B. Sprague

 “Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.”

-         Samuel Johnson

 “When the best things are not possible, the best may be made of those that are.”

-         Richard Hooker”

 “He who hesitates is lost.”  - Proverb

 “If you want to succeed in the world, you must make your own opportunities as you go on.  The man who waits for some seventh wave to toss him on dry land will find that the seventh wave is a long time a coming.  You can commit no greater folly than to sit by the roadside until someone comes along and invites you to ride with him to wealth or influence." – John B. Gough

Simple Ways to Start a Sole Proprietorship Business

Everybody works to earn a living. There are many ways in which one can earn money. Sole proprietorship is one way. For you to start this kind of business, you need to consider some important issues for the success of the business. Mainly this kind of business is operated by one person.

The best to start
The kind of business you want to start must be easy for you to run. Do not go for any business which you have less experience in running. This is because; it can lead you to closing within a very short time of opening. Where to get the products and the suppliers are other things to consider before opening the business.

Capital  
 You must have enough money to start up the business. The capital can be obtained from other businesses or loans.

Location 
The place to locate your business is very much important. Select a good site where there is less competition. Busy places like near certain towns, highways and school are preferable.

Name
 Choose a good name for you business. Take enough time to think of the name that will always call people from far. The name should be able to tell many people what you are dealing with. After that, insure your business with a good insurance company, license it and pay all the required taxes.

Where to get the permits
The permits will depend on the type of business you want to run. They include health, building and environment permits depending on the type of business you want to start. It is better to get a permit for the products you want to deal with. This will help in knowing the genuine products.

Public notice
For people to know that you have started a business, make an announcement to the public through newspapers, radio and television or advertise it online.

Opening a credit and saving account
For good operation of your sole proprietorship business, open accounts to enable you save and get loans for running your business. Although it’s optional, it will help you in separating your business money from other accounts.

Set a target for your business
Set a goal you want to achieve in your business. It will give morale of working extra harder. Look around and see from those people who have operated the same kind of business, and how they managed to succeed.

The Effects Of Praise

Most Christians believe that praising God and being thankful is good; however, many think it is optional, something to do after they have served the Lord in other ways. Some Christians only praise God when their circumstances are good and they have a reason to thank Him. The truth is that praising God is not an option. Praise has a powerful effect on the believer, the devil, and on God. It is our highest calling.

In Deuteronomy, God pronounced a curse on the children of Israel: "Because thou servedst not the LORD thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things" (28:47). Even though we are not under the Law, this verse tells us that God wants us to have joyful and thankful hearts. Jesus was joyful. Hebrews 1:9 tells us that praising God at all times is part of the normal Christian life: "Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows."

How does praise affect the believer? When we praise God, we are acknowledging that it is not our own efforts that produce blessings and prosperity. In Deuteronomy, chapters 7 and 8, the children of Israel are told to remember to thank God for the abundance they will receive. God, not their own efforts, gave them wealth. Praise makes us humble.

Thanksgiving is also a way to abound in faith. Any time we operate in a high degree of faith, praise is present. Colossians 2:6-7 says, "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." When you are believing God for something and it is completed, praise is a natural response. What some people often neglect is that they can increase their faith with praise, and their answers will come more quickly.

By focusing on your problems instead of praising God, you become self-centered and prideful. Praise forces you to get your attention on God and off your problems. Some people say that they are praying, but they are so focused on their problems that they are actually complaining. If you focus on the Word of God, faith will come. How do you keep from focusing on the problem when you are in pain or have no money? The most important thing you can do is praise God. A negative, complaining attitude won't change overnight, but beginning to praise God will start the transformation in your attitude. If you have always been negative, you must practice thinking on positive things. Philippians 4:4 tells us to "rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice."

When we pray, we should begin with praise and end with praise. The Lord's prayer gives us this example, and Philippians 4:6-7 tells us, "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." When you pray with thanksgiving, the peace of God will keep your heart and mind.

Praise will build you up spiritually and keep you from crumbling, "for the joy of the LORD is your strength" (Neh. 8:10). The Apostle Paul was persecuted and suffered far more than most of us, yet he put it all in perspective in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18: "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." First, Paul said our affliction is just for a moment in light of eternity. He looked into the spiritual realm. Praise will push you into the spiritual realm to see what God has done for you. Paul and Silas praised God in prison. It was the praise that released the power of God and the earthquake that delivered them from their captivity.

Praising God doesn't just affect us; it is a powerful weapon against the devil as well. Psalm 8:2 says, "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger." In the book of Matthew (21:16), at the time of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Palm Sunday), Jesus quotes from Psalm 8. When he quoted this verse, he interchanged the words "perfected praise" for "ordained strength." This is a tremendous revelation: Praise is strength (Neh. 8:10)!

Some people are so involved in spiritual warfare that their attention is on the devil more than on God. There is a place for fighting and resisting the devil, but focusing too much on the devil is not good. Praise is a powerful weapon against the devil that has no negative fallout. In 2 Chronicles 20, Jehoshaphat appointed singers to lead his army into battle with praise unto the Lord. When they went into battle singing and praising God, the Lord set an ambush, and their enemies were defeated.

Why does praise defeat Satan? Satan's sin was jealousy of God. He is still driven by jealousy today (Is. 14:13-14). Even if he can't get people to worship him, his goal is to keep people from worshiping God. He seeks to draw attention away from God. When we worship God, we thwart Satan's plan.

We have learned the power of starting a service with praise. Praise makes the devil flee and releases the anointing of God. Even the secular world knows the benefits of praise. The medical profession says that a person who is joyful is more healthy than a person who is morbid and depressed. Praise stops a negative attitude.
The most important reason to praise God is that it ministers unto Him. Acts 13 describes a situation at the church in Antioch. Verse 2 says, "As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them." This is an awesome statement. They ministered to the Lord. How do we minister to the Lord? We often think we serve God only by ministering to other people. This happened in Matthew, chapter 8, with Peter's mother-in-law. She waited on them and did household duties. That is a ministry; however, in this instance in Acts, they were fasting, praying, and ministering to the Lord. They were worshiping and glorifying God. That also ministers to the Lord.

The truth is that God desires ministry. God is complete and self-contained, but He needs us to love Him. Any person who loves has a need to show that love and a need to have that love returned. That is the reason for the creation of man in the first place. In Revelation 4, John saw a vision of what is happening in heaven. He saw twenty-four elders and four living creatures that don't cease praising God. In verse 11, the elders said, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." This tells us that God's original and current purpose for creation is for His pleasure. God created us to be full of praise, joy, and thanksgiving. He is blessed by His creation.

We are often so service-oriented that we think we have to minister to others or work at the church to bless God. We think our net worth to God is our service. We forget that if it blesses God, it doesn't have to touch anyone else. He longs to know us personally and intimately. There are hundreds of times in Scripture that God solicits our praise. Psalm 100:4 says that we should "enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name."

I married Jamie because I love her and want to share my life with her. Jamie is an excellent homemaker and keeps a clean house, which blesses our family. However, if she cared more for the house than for me, it would cease to minister to me. It is the same way in our relationship with God. Service is not a substitute for a relationship with God.

Our number one priority must be to love God personally. Praise is giving of yourself to God — an intimate communion with Him. If we would praise and seek God first, during our prayer time, other things would be added unto us. (Matt. 6:33)

John 3:16 tells us that God gave His Son that we might have eternal life. Christians often think eternal life begins when you die and go to heaven, but John 17:3 tells us differently. Eternal life is now. Intimately knowing God is eternal life. Praise is a way to begin this love relationship with God.

"By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name"(Heb. 13:15).