The Price I Paid

A few months ago, I was asked to write about my reflections on the cost of a mistake I had made. It asked me to examine the financial, relational and psychological costs. Below are some excerpts from what I've written:



"To be honest, I haven't accounted for every little price or loss or cost. I work and study and live a productive life- to count every cost, to audit every expenditure in the framework that I have to repay for the worst night of my life is in itself a price I cannot afford to pay. Rather I take stock of my life before, after and onward from that night.




The fact is this: The notion that I have paid a price implies that an exchange has occurred.



Looking back, it's easy to say that I mortgaged my early 20's for a gamble that I lost. That I was overleveraged and the risk was too great to rebound from. But taking snap shots of my life now compared to my life then illustrates that the aforementioned costs have really been exchanged for a life of focus, of discipline, of realism. For I have been forced to deal with my demons, to eradicate my bad habits, and to clear out the cancer of insecurities that plagued my life. Friends lost weren't really friends at all. My situation became a litmus test for the shallowness of aquaintainces and proved the resolve that lies within the people that truly love me. The ones who stuck by me in during the dark winter nights and waited, beck and call, for news of every progressing detail.



I have aquired better time management skills, learned to be more punctual and make better decisions. I traded a life of pretentious arrogance and fashion labels for one of utility and legitmacy. A life of empty promises with no intentions of fulfillment, exchanged for the truth of a harsh but doable reality. Clear purpose and achievable steps to my goals replaced the ambiguity and fear of failure. Where remained a dark, cold emptiness -a looming, bottomless doom beneath my feet- has now been replaced by a solid foundation found only when one has reached rock bottom. I have recieved a stout re-training in the behaviors and tactics to lead a life not jeopardized by temporary pleasures.



I have gained new friends, born as a direct result of my mistake. Friendships that would never have been forged otherwise. People who barely knew me, coming to my aid at my lowest points. People who were willing to enter my life when I had nothing to offer and everything to take.



What price have I paid? $10,000? $20,000? $50,000? It doesn't really matter, for I have recieved my life. And though its not perfect, I am in less debt than before the events that transpired on November night. I have better quality friends. I have the love of my family. A promotion at work. And a humbleness that merely being a good steward of my life is repayment for the countless hours and money that others have spent to continually support me.



And finally, the realization of this inevitable truth: make good decisions. They are no more harder than the consequences of bad decisions. While the changes and progress made has not been for the reasons I hoped for, or paid in the form that I expected, I have certainly profited. For the time and money spent on this mistake and its subsequent consequences have been large, it is a small price to pay in exchange for the person I am becoming and the life I am beginning to live."



Challenge: How do you view the mistakes or problems that you've dealt with in your life? Were they situations to be merely survived or chances to clean house and start right? As I've tried to commnicate in my last blogs, your attitude is one thing that makes all the difference. Instead of hoping to survive the consequences of every negative event in your life, view these as part of the exchange to becoming a purer YOU. A you unshackled by the insecurities and fears that weigh you down and keep you from doing what makes you come alive. For it is then when you can truly make all the difference in your life and the lives of those around you.