A while back in my Economics class I learnt about a concept called ‘Opportunity Cost’, in simple words it is the value of the next best alternative that is lost when you make a choice. I personally believe that this is a highly relevant concept for everything in life. Every time we make a decision, we gain something, and lose something else. It’s like the Interactive Goosebumps books I used to read, where you literally run to your own death. And with every opportunity cost (sorry if this is too metaphorical) we create two pathways in our lives, one on which we are standing right now and another of how our lives would be if we chose the next-best alternative. Again, this is highly simplified as there would me multiple, multiple pathways, which is a pretty scary concept to imagine, and this just become more complicated with age and experience when we make more choices. But it is also important to question if you’re happy with where you are standing right now, or you’d rather go back in time and shuffle up some of the choices you made. As we grow up, the opportunity costs in life become larger and the decisions become harder and proportionately the two paths diverge further away. Yes, it is harder to decide which university to apply to as opposed to what to eat for dinner.

But what is really important is how we make those decisions. How we agree upon what is best and what is second best, and that comes down to the ‘rational thinking concept’. This may seem obvious, but in humans it is highly ambiguous. There are exceptions in life when we go against this rational-thinking concept and make decisions that are not the most beneficial for us. This can happen for many reasons and the first and most obvious one is love or any intense emotion for that matter. When you’re blinded by emotions, acting upon them comes first and thinking comes later. Another reason can include support or peer pressure, it happens to everybody- in a large group we tend to follow ideas or comply with plans that we otherwise wouldn’t. Additionally, the safety net that humans feel in a group is both re-assuring and irrational.

Now drawing from this concept, I want to remind you that sometimes we need to stopping thinking about the opportunities costs and consequences of our actions and start doing more. We need to get out of our minds and back into the present, because sometimes the most beautiful creations come from spontaneous ideas, epiphanies, serendipity and beautiful mistakes. Sometimes things just work themselves out. So instead of focusing upon the second path of missed opportunities spend your energy on building the path you already walk on.