Latest / YINWorldWide / What Does the Life You Want Actually Cost
Transcript
- YIN: How bad do you want it? That's the question people love to ask when somebody says they want something. Usually the answer we are supposed to give is some version of bad enough to do whatever it takes. But whatever it takes sounds a lot better when you leave it undefined. Because once you start naming the price, the question changes. Giving up comfort is one thing. Living with uncertainty for years is another. And eventually the price may become something you cannot replace once it's gone. Time, relationships, health. Moments you thought there would always be more of. That is where whatever it takes stops sounding motivational and it becomes a real question. what are you willing to sacrifice to get what you say you want? And what are you unwilling to sacrifice? I don't believe that there's one correct answer, but I do believe there's a danger in never answering it for yourself. Because whether you consciously decide what your price is or not, the universe has a way of collecting it anyway. This is yin, and these are conversations about discipline, direction, and identity and how they quietly shape who you become. I can look at my own life and tell you that I have paid for the things that I wanted. I've missed family reunions, birthdays, mother's days, anniversaries. There are events that I missed out on that I can no longer name. And I could sit here now and rewrite all of that with the benefits of hindsight. I could say I should have been there, that work was not worth it, and that I had my priorities wrong. But that would not be completely honest, because in those moments the price was worth it to me. I knew there were other places I could have been. I knew that there were things that I was missing. And I made the trade knowingly. Not because those people didn't matter, not because those moments were meaningless, but because at that point in my life, what I was trying to build mattered enough to me that I was willing to pay the price. Sometimes sacrifice is not something that happens to you. Sometimes you know exactly what you were giving up, and you choose the other thing anyway just as I did and some of those sacrifices helped me build the life I have now So I'm not interested in pretending that every missed event was some terrible mistake. That would be easy to say looking back. It would also erase the person that I was. What has changed as I have gotten older is not that I suddenly believe that all the sacrifices were wrong. What's changed is what I want. And because what I want has changed, so has what I'm willing to pay for it. There was a version of me that would give away almost every weekend if I thought it would move me closer to the life I was trying to build. Today, that calculation looks different. not because I became less ambitious, but because the currency became more valuable. A Saturday feels different when you understand there are only so many of them left. A birthday feels different when you've missed enough of them. And time starts looking less like something you spend and more like something you cannot replace. That doesn't mean the younger version of me was wrong. It means the life I am trying to build now is not exactly the same life I was trying to build then. And maybe that is something we miss when we talk about sacrifice. The answer is allowed to change. The thing we miss is how rarely the bill arrives all at once. Most of the time, the trade feels small when you make it. You work this weekend because something needs to get done. You miss one thing because the opportunity matters. You tell yourself the reason is temporary and sometimes it is. But temporary can become a dangerous word when you keep moving the finish line. After this year, after this deal, after we hit this number, eventually you can become so accustomed to paying a certain price that you stop asking whether you would still agree to it. That is the part I think matters. There's a difference between consciously choosing a sacrifice and And continuing one out of habit. You can keep living under an agreement you made to yourself years ago, even after the reason for making it has changed. And if you never stop to reconsider the trade, you may find yourself paying for a life that you're not even sure you want anymore. But even when you know exactly what you are willing to give, there is something else nobody can promise you. That the sacrifice will work. we usually hear stories after we know the ending. The company succeeded, the athlete made it, the artist finally broke through. Then we hear what it cost them. And every sacrifice starts looking justified because we already know where the story ends. Of course, the risk was worth it. Of course, the years were worth it. Look at what happened. But that is not how sacrifice feels when you're making it. There is no narrator telling you that you're six months away from a breakthrough. You don't know if the money's gonna come back. You don't know if the company survives. You don't know if the opportunity ever arrives. That changes the entire conversation. Because sacrifice does not guarantee the outcome. It only gives you permission to pursue it. You can pay the price and still lose. And we do not spend enough time. Talking about the people who did. The founder who put everything into a company and failed anyway. the person who gave years to something and eventually walked away without the ending they imagined. they sacrificed also. We just don't make documentaries about them. You see, success. Cleans up the story. It makes sacrifice look almost mathematical. Give enough, endure enough, and eventually something has to come back. But life does not make the agreement with us. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Which means the real question cannot be whether you would pay the price if somebody guaranteed that you were going to win. Almost anybody would make that trade. The harder question is, would the pursuit still be justified if the ending never came? That Is a much harder question, but it is the question that you must answer. And even then, there has to be a line somewhere. Ambition has a way of making boundaries look suspicious. If you are unwilling to give something up, maybe you just don't want something badly enough. A person can decide that something matters more than winning. That does not make them weak. It means they understand the hierarchy of their own life. And maybe that is the question underneath this entire episode. Not what do you want? What matters more than what you want? Because eventually two things that you value are going to compete with each other. The opportunity might require something from your relationship. Growth might require you giving up stability. Money might require less control of your time. is when all the easy advice stops working. There is no obvious wrong answer. You simply cannot have both things in exactly the same form you want them. Every yes eventually contains a no. if you commit deeply enough in one direction, some other direction becomes less available. That is not pessimism. That is what choosing means. If nothing is excluded, nothing has really been chosen. I think a lot of us spend years trying to avoid that reality. We wait for the version where everything lines up. Nobody is disappointed. The timing works. The risk disappears. We somehow get both lives. Sometimes that version does not exist. Sometimes you are not choosing between pain and no pain. You are choosing between two different forms of pain. The pain of taking the chance and living with what it cost, or the pain of protecting what you have and wondering what might have been. You are not trying to choose the life with no pain. You were deciding which pain belongs to the life you are willing to live. And regret exists on both sides of that decision. Everybody talks about waking up one day wondering. what would have happened if they had taken the chance. That regret is real. But so is waking up and wondering why you gave so much to something that never deserved that much of you. Why you kept saying after this year for 10 years? Why the thing that was supposed to create a better life eventually started consuming the life it was supposed to improve? Neither possibility comes with a warning label. That is why nobody outside of your life can make the decision for you. They do not have to live with the bill. You do. This is the part we have to keep coming back to, year after year. The question has to be asked again. Not because you failed, but because you changed. So I'm not going to tell you to sacrifice more, and I'm not going to tell you to protect everything. Both answers are too easy. Instead, think about the thing you say you want, the thing you actually want. Remove the version where everything works perfectly. Assume it takes longer than you thought. Assume the outcome is not guaranteed. Then look at the real price. What are you genuinely willing to give for the chance to have it? And then ask the question I think matters even more. What will you not give up? What sits above the goal? What part of your life is no longer available as currency? Because maybe the answer is different than it was five years ago. I know mine is. I have no regrets for the sacrifices that I made because they built the life that I live today. They helped make me who I am. The point is not to build a life where you never give up anything. That life does not exist. The point is to make sure the things you're giving up are still buying a life you actually want. So maybe how bad do you want it was never the right question. Maybe the better question is: what are you willing to pay for the life that you want now? And what, no matter what is waiting on the other side, is no longer for sale. This is yin. If this resonated, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Not everyone, just someone who's ready. You can find Yin Worldwide Podcast on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. And if you want to go deeper, visit our website at liveyin.com. Subscribe if you're committed to the work. If not, that's fine too. This isn't for everyone. Remember, move with intention.