Random Con-nec-tions

Life and Economics Class


In my Economics class, we spent a lot of time talking about this concept called “opportunity cost”. It explains the full cost of buying, or doing something. For example, if you were talking about the opportunity cost of a college degree, not only do you have to count tuition, but you also have to factor in the money that you could have been making if you had gotten a job rather than going to college. Or the opportunity cost of buying an orange is not only the money spent on the orange, but the time it takes to go to the grocery store and get the orange, as well as the fact that now you can’t buy an apple or a bag of Skittles with the money you spent on the orange.
It’s one of my favourite concepts, because it relates to back to real life so perfectly. For every choice you make, you have to give up making another choice. Whether it’s a choice to go to class rather than skip and go to your favourite band’s concert, or if it is to go to Church Sunday morning rather than stay up all night Saturday. Every choice has a consequence.
Even if you don’t understand economics and you don’t understand my explanation, I want to
you think about this: when you’re making choices, what the consequences of your decision? Are you giving up more than you’re receiving? What’s going to be a better choice in the long run? For a moment stop focussing about what great fun it will be at the time and think about how you’ll feel after the fact. What will you think of yourself after? Are the costs greater than the benefits? I know this is something we hear all the time, but I want you to really think about it for a second. How many times have you made a bad choice that could have been avoided if you had just thought about it?

-Kathleen Kerr