When I was younger, I thought constantly about the things I wanted to accomplish, because we live in a society that’s geared toward achievement. But when I was being encouraged to dream big back then, nobody ever warned me about tradeoffs. Nobody warned me that you give up some things in order to pursue other things. I was under the impression I could have it all.
I’ve thought a lot about choices in the past few years. For a long time, I tried to avoid making choices, because I looked at life as a buffet where you just kept adding to your plate. Maybe my metaphor wasn’t too far off, but I didn’t realize that the “plate” we have in life is of a limited size. If your plate is full, something has to come off as you add more to it.
If you devote yourself to pursuing a dream of some kind — wealth, fame, early retirement, whatever the carrot dangling in front of you is — you always give up something else. Only you can decide which tradeoffs are worth it — and nobody can spare you from the certainty of having to make the choices, whether they’re conscious or unconscious.
As I thought about this Monday night, I was reminded of a quote from investment guru Jim Rogers. In his book, “Investment Biker,” he discussed the tradeoffs involved in pursuing whatever it is you want:

I often need to remind myself what I still believe to be true
Continued collapse of competence points toward decline of a culture
Cop pepper-spraying protesters is symbol for arrogant police culture
I still have trouble accepting that my idealized world doesn’t exist
Will you sell more days of your life
Taking responsibility for mistakes is foreign concept in many lawsuits
Dead man’s watch always there to remind me of my own mortality
I was agonizingly slow to ‘get it,’ but the joy of music changed me
‘Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men’s blood… Make big plans’