Last Price? by Yemi Olusoga
Some moments define us, not because they have the power to but because of the choices we make as a result of these moments. The choice between right or wrong, the choice between good or bad, the choice between staying in a familiar state of comfort or taking the risk to rock the boat a little.
Life I’ve heard is a sum of all our choices…I agree but the question is what about the things we didn’t choose? The choices that chose us. Like the family we were born into, the country we are from, or our physical attributes. These are not exactly choices, yet they influence our lives somewhat.
So here’s my philosophy on life, it’s not just a sum of our choices; it’s also a series of negotiations. We negotiate for something every day, and this is more than buying meat from the market or a CD in traffic. We negotiate for how we want other people to treat us, what we want to be known for or associated with, how we want our relationships to function… the list is endless. Just like in a poker game, we take the cards that “life” has dealt us and we negotiate with it.
We negotiate because we never want to settle for less than we deserve and we want full value for what we are exchanging in return for whatever it is we are getting. The interesting thing is we would never let a trader in the market or a mechanic in his auto shop shortchange us, we always find ourselves asking for the “last price” before we take the offer but when it comes to bigger things we sometimes settle for whatever we get. Relationships and friendships that make us feel inadequate and strip us of our pride, a job that we hate, or a life that is clearly not the one we should be living, we just settle!
It is not enough to know what you deserve, knowing what you deserve comes with the responsibility of demanding for it. So the next time life deals you a hand, it doesn’t matter how good or bad it seems if you want more; just look life straight in the eye and negotiate until it makes you an offer you CAN’T refuse!
“There is no passion to be found in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living”.
– Nelson Mandela