“There is an opportunity cost for everything we do. This is why we must have the awareness to ensure that what we are pursuing is really what we value, because the pursuit leaves countless lost opportunities in its wake. We choose one experience at the sacrifice of all other experiences”—Chris Matakas
What do you want? The potato or the stack of quarters? Everything we choose comes at a cost. Choose one thing and we have lost the opportunity for another. We give up one value to obtain another. Such is the transactional life—we are the spoon, balanced on the calculator, weighing our options.
Now, in those bad old using days, our spoon was teetering all over the place. We really had only the one opportunity we wished to pursue—and that was the opportunity to get smashed, blitzed, stoned, obliterated, numbed, whacked out or jacked up. Pursuing the addiction-fulfillment opportunity to the max meant a massive opportunity cost in unattended relationships, broken commitments, erratic work habits, financial debt and a host of other life-deficiencies.
We paid an opportunity cost too with our health as we burned the candle at both ends and drained our energy reserves. In other words, we valued the altered state above all else—and paid an increasingly steep opportunity cost to support that primary value.
In recovery, we learned to recover our values balance. We became more delicate and more aware about the values we pursued. In fact, these new values and this new sense of balance became essential to our ongoing serenity. We paused more and became more considerate in our choices. We became more attentive to how our decisions affected not only our own opportunity cost but the opportunity cost of others. We no longer saw ourselves as terminally unique. We were connected to a fellowship of support. We listened to our shifts in balance and made the necessary course corrections to stay on track.
The more we work recovery skills of this kind, the more they work for us. For it to work, we work it.
Today, let’s reflect for a moment on how well our value-choices are supporting our balanced recovery. Are we making any choices that may be costing us a finer, safer opportunity of another kind?
To emphasize this contemplation on a physical level, let’s do this simple but often surprisingly challenging movement:
Begin by standing with your feet about six inches apart. Now, raise the right leg, bent at the knee, to about hip height. Bring your arms out to the sides, until they are fully extended at shoulder height. Close your eyes. Breathe gently and hold this position as you count to 60. Open your eyes and bring your right leg down. Repeat with your left leg. If you find it challenging to balance on one leg with your eyes closed and think you might even fall over, rest one hand on the back of a chair. The more you practice the better your balance will become.
I am happy to be choosing values that better support my serenity and which enhance my sense of safety.