Soulful Sundays: Compensation

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” — Henry David Thoreau

There is no such thing as a free lunch. No matter how much we wish it to be true, every benefit carries a cost. When we advance in one place, somewhere else there is a retreat. Where there is victory, there is also defeat. What we sacrifice in each exchange may be obvious, but more often the price remains hidden. With every decision, all other possible futures are cut away. Action purchases reality at the expense of opportunity. Certainty purchases clarity at the expense of potential.

Beginner’s mind is the state of infinite promise. Because nothing is known, all remains knowable. But inevitably, we create shortcuts on our way to understanding. We perceive our mortality and are drawn toward reduction. We seek solutions rather than wisdom. We mistake progress for process. We begin to demand that the world conform to our understanding rather than allow our understanding to be reshaped by the world. In doing so, we build patterns that serve us—and ultimately confine us.

It is good to have preferences. They give character and richness to life. It is not good to ignore what challenges them. Growth requires the sacrifice of comfort, which demands that we suspend our propensity towards self-validation. We actually move forward by remembering—again and again— to go backwards to the beginning. Balance requires the acceptance of this paradox. As written in the Tao Te Ching: “The sage sees all things as difficult, and therefore nothing is difficult.” The cost of a life well lived is accepting what lies outside your control and taking responsibility for what remains within it. The compensation is not the fruit, but the labor—and the absence of regret.