As Emerson said for everything we have missed, we have gained something else, and for everything we Gain, we lose something else. Life is about ongoing compromises. We trade off our resources constantly for our survival and add new meanings. Sometimes they are tangible and sometimes intangible.

It is interesting and important how we make decisions what to trade off. And it is important to be aware of this universal principle reflected in all walks of our lives. There are many factors affecting our decisions from constants to variables. As highlighted throughout the history, compromise can be seen a kind of sacrifice of a right or good thing in the hope of obtaining another one. The sad part (which we need to be cautious) is that we may end up losing both, I mean the compromised and the compromising goals; hence we need to be careful when we are making decisions and apply an intelligent risk assessment process based on the relationships of our needs, gains, goals and what we compromised. For example we see that through our compromises of tactical gains we neglected very important parts of our humanity such as human rights in some countries, collective creation and transformation which may lead us towards enlightenment.

Last week, I had to compromise my blogging and online social networking time to gain some different perspectives in life which will be important for me in the long term. There were almost no other areas for me to cut time and spend for my new transformation activity hence I have deliberately chosen blogging and social networking time because their impact on my life is seen less than the impact of my other goal; at least as an indication of my own risk assessment for this decision. Even though I missed the interaction of blogging and other social networking activities last 10 days, I am grateful about my choice, decision and the progress which produced satisfactory outcomes for me. How about you? How and what do you trade off for what reasons?