When I learned about opportunity cost in economics, it was just an abstract concept. Sure, I understood that every choice has a next best alternative, but I didn’t see the concept playing out in my day-to-day life.
Almost 20 years on, I’m seeing a pattern that our opportunity costs grow as we get older. We have more commitments and harder trade-offs to deal with across our time, money, and energy. When we say “yes” to anything, we’re also saying “no” to a larger and more valuable set of alternatives.
We’re not going to escape this transition to higher opportunity costs, so it’s our responsibility to put the necessary thought into our trade-off decisions. If we’re not consciously choosing, we’re letting someone else choose for us.