The Pain You Choose
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There is always a trade off. A sacrifice that we make as individuals in order to get one thing for another thing. This is as simple as trading money for goods or services, and as we become adults it turns into trading our time and energy. As kids our parents typically are making decisions for us about where we spend our time, enrolling us in school, and extra-curriculars in hopes that we will be healthy and happy children. We invest time and energy as children and adults in order to secure some sort of long term payoff. Investments like school, sports, music or the arts. It can become easy to forget that when we make these decisions with our time we are always always giving something up in return. 

  Subconsciously it can be easy to let our time and energy slip away, unaware of where it is going and what we are giving up in return. The more that we can become aware of the tradeoffs in our life the easier it can be to determine what is important and what is not. Some things absolutely are necessary, but we often wait far too long in order to make a stand on what is important to us often before it is too late.

  Think about what is the dream or the absolute north star towards which you are pointed. That could be a career you absolutely adore, could be building an amazing family unit with a partner you love, or that could be traveling around the world, but in any event you have to decide what that is to you, and obviously this can change with time. Now that you have decided what is the most important thing to sacrifice for, put that dream directly up against the things that are stealing your time and energy. Hopefully that gives perspective in regards to the pain that you choose to put yourself through.