“If you don’t get what you want, it’s a sign either that you did not seriously want it, or that you tried to bargain over the price.” Rudyard Kipling

It happens, things don’t work out like we plan. There are numerous reasons why and we know them well. However, more often than not, we simply hoped for success rather than made it part of the plan. In the Venn diagram below, we too often tend to seek or choose fast, easy, cheap solutions over the one we really want – even when making life choices.

If I write a book about the top ten quotes to live by, this is without any doubt among the top three. This quote is peculiar as I’m not sure it would have hit me as hard when I first read it as it does now. At age 18 for example, the answer to the question of what one really want’s is not fully formed. Moreover, the idea of what you expect for the effort you put in can be nebulous if all you’ve ever done is played by the rules society has laid out for you – done enough homework to get good enough grades and behaved so to be popular enough. It’s only after years in the real world that the cumulative impact of a thousand compromises begin to be felt.

Success is part luck and part skill, some elements are out of our control while others are. The fact is that the success we covet comes with a price tag that scares most away. Most choose to continue dreaming and hoping than paying. It comes with sticker shock too; once you begin paying you realize that it costs even more than you imagined. The choices are stark – pay the price of having it or the price of not having it. The foresight required to put the wisdom of this quote into action often takes hindsight, the less you require the better off you will be.