Recent Musings:
Free lunch? Where?
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Ever heard the saying that there's no such thing as a free lunch? Well, if you haven't (which is true for more people than I thought), then I'll explain it to you. I didn't know or understand the concept until my first year at the university. My economics teacher explained it during class and although I and other people tried to argue, he made a very lucid point; there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Say someone offers to buy you lunch. Technically, it's not costing you any money, so it appears to be a free lunch. However, other costs are involved - that free lunch may be costing you time, emotional investment, the money you could be making if you were at work, the calories of a meal you normally wouldn't have eaten, a lunch you could have eaten with another person, etc. Even though your lunch doesn't cost you money, it does cost you other things.
I bring this up 1) because I've had to explain it several times in the last week and 2) because it's very, very, very important for each person to know in life what costs he or she is willing to spend.
As I get older I realize more things; I've started to look at the varied costs my decisions will cost me. I choose not to work 50+ hrs. a week because although I need money, I also know I need rest. Rest doesn't give me financial security but it does give me emotional peace; therefore, it costs me, personally, more to work 50 hrs. a week than to not work 50 hrs. a week.
Relationships are also this way. There is usually not too big of a financial cost in relationships, (although there can be), but there definitely are other costs involved in relationships. I've learned that I no longer want the "free lunch" when it's going to cost me too much emotionally. I can afford to provide my own food; I can't afford to rebuild my self-esteem every time I'm verbally demeaned.
If I'd like a monetarily free lunch every day of my life, I could have it, yet the emotional investment the lunches cost me is not worth it. I'd rather eat peanut butter and jelly in peace than eat roast and potatoes with emotional baggage attached.
Summing up, I'd like to say that I used to think free lunch was worth it while being the martyr for the sake of relationship. I know now that it's not. The cost, for me, is just too high.