Deal or No Deal?

Today finally switched our internet plan over. Every month we've been running out of data limit about 2/3 of the way through and been stuck on slower than dial up speeds for the reaming 10 days. It kinda got annoying and so we upgraded to a bigger plan with roughly 50% more data download to keep Youtube fully functional. I was expecting to pay another $30 but it turned out to only cost us $5 more. I was kinda puzzled until the Indian call operator explained why. "Well sir, the plan you now have is our new plan, but beforehand you had your phone bundled with us and we gave you 100 free local calls to the value of $30 and now you get the extra data for $5 but lose the 100 free local calls" He then proceeded to ask me what the weather was like outside as he fumbled through his computer system trying to work out what button to press to fix my internet. "Um it's been raining?" "How long for sir?" "Um since I WOKE UP????" (kinda becoming a bit too intrusive in his bid to avoid awkward silence over the phone and impress his boss)So now we have full speed internet. But in order to gain that I have had to sacrifice our free local calls. But I calculated we only spent $2.30 last month on that so we really gain more with the internet. It's a matter of weighing up the options and making a trade-off.

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Been watching more Death Note tonight. Now a blonde female character has been introduced who falls deeply in love with the evil killer (aww how sweet!). She too gets his killing powers but she wants more. She wants ot be more powerful and have the 'shinigami' (death god) eyes which will enable her to kill anyone. But in return for this power, she must trade half of her remaining life span in order to win her 'love' over with her new powers. She weighs it up and decides her new boyf is worth giving up half of her remaining years and makes a rather important trade-off (if only she knew what was around the corner! Ah Misa!)

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Life is about trade-offs. We think the toil of studying hard at uni is worth it to get the job we want. We think the pain of slaving away at our job is a worthwhile trade-off to ensure we get the nice big house with the dog and 2 kids we want. We think the time we spend away from our family is a fair trade-off in order to 'have' a family. Sometimes we make good trade-offs (like better internet) and sometimes we make bad ones (like selling your life for power or love). Are our trade-offs worth it? Or have we blindly entered into them without evaluating where we are going?

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose" - Jim Elliot (murdered missionary to Ecuador, aged 29)