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:

How do you suppose invention of ‘truth machine’ would affect you?
For rest of my life, I’ll constantly re-interpret mother I didn’t know
We build our own prison walls, and breaking free starts in heart
Don’t believe angry words and deception from a wounded heart
As we enjoyed the sunset together, language and borders didn’t matter
OK, morons, we’ll finally admit it: We really are smarter than you
Only through death of empires can something new take their places
Nobody’s perfect as a mate, but Mary Poppins was pretty close