In economics, opportunity cost is the cost of the next best alternative to what you're spending your money on, and it's added to the price. In other words, if you have a dollar, and you desire a cheese burger and a bottle of pop, each of which costs a dollar, if you buy the cheeseburger, the total cost of buying the cheeseburger is a dollar and a bottle of pop. If you buy the pop, the total cost is a dollar and a cheeseburger. This is because the act of spending the dollar on the pop means that you no longer have the dollar and also that you don't have the cheeseburger.
Although the opportunity cost concept is typically used in terms of money, it actually applies to every instance where you act on a choice.
If you take a step to the left, the act of taking that step costs you the utils expended to take the step (the price), but is also costs you whatever benefits that could have been derived from having taken that step in any other direction (the utility cost.)
This is a useful concept for your Heaven Path travels because life is one continuous string of choices.
When we wake up in the morning, we may lay in bed for awhile thinking productive thoughts, or we may lay in bed awhile thinking unprodutive thoughts. Or we may get up immediately and start our tai chi practice.
One aspect of opportunity cost that I tend to modify is the idea that the item not chosen is the next best choice to the item chosen. I recognize that on the one hand we often don't choose the best choice, and on the other hand that when we do choose the best choice, sometimes we're wrong about it being the best.
So my modification to the concept is that the opportunity cost is the cost of the best alternative to the choice we are making. Sometimes the alternative is better than what we choose, and sometimes is is worse.
This comes in to play when we're reacting to other prople. Someone says something to you that immediately angers you and even though you know it serves very little purpose to respond in anger, as compared to finding the deeper message that is usually there and responding in a manner appropriate to that message, you nevertheless respond with anger.
This response costs you what responding in anger usually costs you in that situation, but is also costs you the benefit that responding in a more appropriate manner would have given you.
If you speak patronizingly to someone, not only does it cost you the increased emnity of the person that you patronized, it also costs you the appreciation that would have come to you had you spoken in a more sincere manner.
Conversely, if you choose to be kind, the opportunity cost is freqently only the cost of having been less kind.
This is why some choices are more fulfilling for your Heaven Path. The opportunity cost of those choices is very low, making the cost of fulfillment very nearly the cost of the utils expended for that fulfillment.
While on ones Heaven Path, one should always seek to choose such that the price you pay provides maximum benefit and the opportunity cost is most negligible.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
Hysteria and Manipulation
I wonder if anyone remembers the hysteria that resulted over the ozone holes above the poles. It hasn't been that long ago that the ozone holes occupied the same pinnacle of concern that global warming does now.
Did the ozone holes get subsumed by the greater but related issue of global warming?
No, they didn't.
For those who don't remember, the ozone holes were opening up over the poles of earth due to ozone interaction with and subsequent destuction by man-made chemicals in the atmosphere. The holes were getting bigger and the ozone was what protected our delicate skin from damage by the sun's rays that were blocked by ozone.
The hysteria was on, and the world cried out for prohibition on the use of the chemicals that were causing the destuction of the ozone layer over the poles before the holes got so big that us humans were cooked by the unblocked rays, and consequences be damned.
How did we ever survive.
Well. One of the things that was widely known in the scientific community was that ozone was a molecule consisting of three atoms of oxygen. Basically, regular oxygen molecules with an extra oxygen atom thrown in.
And it was also known that ozone was made by regular oxygen being exposed to those very rays that ozone prevented from hitting the surface of the earth.
So. As the ozone holes got bigger, more and more regular oxygen molecules were exposed to the rays that cause an extra oxygen atom to attach to the regular oxygen molecule, creating ozone.
In other words, the problem was self-correcting.
And this information was readily available BEFORE the hysteria began.
Why, then, did so many people become hysterical about it?
Because, it dawned on someone that most people didn't know the above information, and that the idea of dying of exposure to these intractable rays would scare those very same 'most' people.
Those 'someones' ran with the idea.
As we follow our Heaven Path, we will be exposed to ideas that may frighten us.
But if that fright is sufficient to deflect you from fulfilling your Heaven Path, it is in your best interest to take some time and study up on the subject before you start crying out for someone to save you.
This is because, on the one hand, the people that step up to save you are probably not actually interested in saving you, and, on the other hand, you may not actually need saving to begin with.
Did the ozone holes get subsumed by the greater but related issue of global warming?
No, they didn't.
For those who don't remember, the ozone holes were opening up over the poles of earth due to ozone interaction with and subsequent destuction by man-made chemicals in the atmosphere. The holes were getting bigger and the ozone was what protected our delicate skin from damage by the sun's rays that were blocked by ozone.
The hysteria was on, and the world cried out for prohibition on the use of the chemicals that were causing the destuction of the ozone layer over the poles before the holes got so big that us humans were cooked by the unblocked rays, and consequences be damned.
How did we ever survive.
Well. One of the things that was widely known in the scientific community was that ozone was a molecule consisting of three atoms of oxygen. Basically, regular oxygen molecules with an extra oxygen atom thrown in.
And it was also known that ozone was made by regular oxygen being exposed to those very rays that ozone prevented from hitting the surface of the earth.
So. As the ozone holes got bigger, more and more regular oxygen molecules were exposed to the rays that cause an extra oxygen atom to attach to the regular oxygen molecule, creating ozone.
In other words, the problem was self-correcting.
And this information was readily available BEFORE the hysteria began.
Why, then, did so many people become hysterical about it?
Because, it dawned on someone that most people didn't know the above information, and that the idea of dying of exposure to these intractable rays would scare those very same 'most' people.
Those 'someones' ran with the idea.
As we follow our Heaven Path, we will be exposed to ideas that may frighten us.
But if that fright is sufficient to deflect you from fulfilling your Heaven Path, it is in your best interest to take some time and study up on the subject before you start crying out for someone to save you.
This is because, on the one hand, the people that step up to save you are probably not actually interested in saving you, and, on the other hand, you may not actually need saving to begin with.