Independence, Gratitude and Remembrance Day!

It is very stormy outside this evening, and it reminds me of the fact that we're entering the season where extreme weather can take out our electricity and our Internet at a moment's notice.

It is just part of the price you pay for living on the outskirts of a relatively small town, which in turn is a long way from any major population center. We have beautiful nature and fresh air, but some of the services are a little dodgy and unreliable.

In a way, it serves as a suitable reminder that almost everything in life has a "price." That price is not necessarily monetary, but you give up something to get something else. Maybe you give up time, maybe you give up effort, maybe you just give up convenience.

We all have to decide whether the price that we are giving up is worth what we perceive we're getting in return. And that can all be relative because the value of something varies tremendously from one person to the next.

As a fine example of that, many years ago — when I decided to move from Central Texas to Washington State — many of the people around me where I lived in Texas were dumbfounded by the fact that I was willing to give up the "sunny hot weather" of Texas for the frequently gloomy skies and rain and cold weather the Pacific Northwest.

Again, that was purely a question of individual preference. Unlike most people I'm not a hot weather person; I'm a cold weather person. Unlike most people I'm not somebody who likes to go out and bake in the sun; my skin burns easily and my family has a tendency to get skin cancer. I'll gladly take those cloudy days and the gray skies!

My point here being that the price I felt I was paying for the move was quite different from how that price would have been calculated by somebody else.

Another good example that perhaps applies to more people is the question of what price are we willing to pay for our independence?

In my case, independence isn't the question of politics or country, so much as the independence that comes with being self-employed and thus living my life more or less in the fashion that I get to choose rather than being subject to the choices of others who perceive themselves to be my "superiors."

And just to clarify, I say this from the perspective of somebody who did work in the corporate life for a while, and decided that that absolutely was not something that I was suited to.

But I'm glad I at least have the freedom to make that choice! And so I will end this post by sharing my gratitude for those who have made this possible over many generations on occasion of today being Remembrance Day in many parts of the world, or Veterans Day here in the USA.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

How about you? How often do you see choices in life as a "price/benefit" scenario? Is that price usually worth it? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2023.11.11 00:38 PST
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