I was pondering this question when I lost the password to my mailbox. I had cheaper options, like opening a new box, getting a new SIM card for two hundred etc.
I decided to pay one thousand naira (N1, 000.00) to reactivate the sim card and also reactivate the phone. My mailbox was tied to the phone line.
It was all about trade-offs. We all bear something painful, like some cost, in order to enjoy a benefit, or some given pleasure.
Every year thousands of teenagers pay good money to sit for JAMB/UTME exams. Why should they? Because the gains of a university education far outweighs the gains of ignorance, of fear and superstition.
Look at it from another point of view. The more we enjoy meals that are rich in calories and sugars, the higher our risk of being obese, or even suffering diabetes. In a secondary fashion, we have to increase our exercise regime and increase our expenditures on exercise equipment and time for exercise.
A fool counts only the benefits and profits of any venture. There is an equal action or force that tends to be a drag on the benefits. We tend to call it costs, and when there are much of them, we have the option of creating a list and prioritizing them.
Take two parties who are haggling. The seller tends to set a high price, while the buyer expects a low price. It takes a balancing act, a-back-and-forth kind of exercise, before both parties agree to make the transaction possible, or not possible.
Every day, we tradeoff one gain for another loss. Why are you reading this blog? Why did you spend good money to be on the internet? That money could have been used for something else.
So I do not feel I was foolish to have paid a thousand naira in order to reactivate my email. Afterall, the mailbox is tied to a blog, an analytics dashboard and a blog monetization application. I might never be able to quantify these online applications, but I think they are worth one thousand naira.So, I made a profit.
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