There is a price for everything
Minh Tan
Just my version of the quote “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. The latter is way too trivial for my liking, not the least just seeming to apply to free lunches people sometimes get as part of work, advertising promotions, etc.
I wish I could have found a word to substitute for “price” that was less associated with economic, financial or monetary terms. That’s because I mean this quote to be far more than a “price” in those terms. I’m talking about emotional tolls, time spent or wasted, environmental impacts, and every other impact anyone can imagine… or can’t. The last is actually the reason why I believe in this quote. Just because you can’t “see” or even imagine that “price”, doesn’t meant there isn’t one. There is one, you just have to figure it out. In some cases, figure it out in full because you might only be thinking about some impact. That’s why we have things like negative environmental impacts, because often times, people don’t think about it, even if they knew there were other prices to pay.
While price implies economic, financial and monetary impacts, I still prefer it to “cost” or other terms. I think price is the more universal term, and one that doesn’t imply translate it to money, like environmental costs. A lot of things money just can’t buy, or feasibly buy like restoring a species going extinct due to our doing. Talk about cloning from dead DNA all you want, see what the cost of that would be to not only clone, but then raise, breed and restore to self-sustaining levels. And emotional costs, no money will get you some of that.
Price, cost or other words aside, though, I know what I mean and I think most people get it. There is a price for everything!
Digital Citizen 