No Free Lunch

I’ve been trying to look for ways to continue to sustain my business and have been analyzing my client base.  And it feels like every client has their own benefits and drawbacks and that there really isn’t one perfect one-stop-fits-all customer. 

Some customers are easier to handle while others are more stressful.  Some are located in attractive markets while others are not.  Some projects may lead to higher margins but also higher headaches, while others are easier to manage but lead to lesser profits.  It seems like sometimes I just need to accept the cards I’ve been given because they are never perfect. 

Just accept the customers for who they are and deal with them the best you can. 

Similarly, I’ve been looking into some good individual stocks to invest in.  And similarly, there is no one perfect stock that will go up all the time.  Every stock seems to have their own strengths and weaknesses.  And there is always an inherent risk built into investing in individual stocks.  The reward is greater, but the so is the potential for a loss.

Similarly, I can decide to invest in low-cost index funds which are considered safer and more diversified then any individualized stock.  This is a popular strategy that has gained steam over the last few years.  But of course, a lower risk investment leads to lower and slower returns as well.

So, over the years, in different areas of life, I’ve noticed that there is no free lunch anywhere I go.  There is always some form of cost that you must accept, whether it’s dealing with different customers in your family business, or deciding what type of assets to invest in.  There are always strengths and weaknesses, benefits and drawbacks, and sometimes all that is simply in the eye of the beholder.

My friends and loved ones are similarly imperfect.  And I’ve come to accept that as well.  The more you get to know someone, the more you realize their flaws.  Some may be too opinionated.  Some may not have enough opinions.  Sometimes, my mind tends to focus on the negative rather than the positive.  And there is much to be grateful for as well.

Quite simply, everything has a cost.  There are flaws everywhere you look.  If I ask Gemini to do a SWOT analysis of the United States, it can similarly list me 10 great things about this country and similarly 10 not-so-great things about it. 

Income inequality, high cost of living, political polarization, are just some things off the top of my head I can think of when I list the many flaws of this great country, which is the USA.

I’ve admittedly considered moving to another country some time in the future (maybe in a couple of decades) to ideally some place with a lower cost of living.  But of course, some of those other countries don’t have the resources of the USA.  They don’t have the beautiful natural parks, they don’t have the diverse ecosystem, and they don’t have the support system that I’ve built from living here over the past 40+ years.  My comfort zone will be ripped away from me and I will be inherently starting from scratch if I were to move to another country. 

So, these are all costs that I juggle in my head as I realize that there is no perfect solution to anything.  You can measure success by the number of “wins” that someone has.  The amount of wealth that someone has.  The number of connections that someone has.  But regardless of how you measure it, there will be certain areas of insufficiency as well.

I know that as of now, Elon Musk is the richest man on the planet.  He is obviously a business genius that runs multiple successful companies (such as Tesla, SpaceX, and more).  However, it is well documented that he has gone thru periods of burnout and depression.  And his recent spat with President Trump has shown that sometimes even he doesn’t have the perfect set of social skills to get along with every single person in this world.

Elon Musk has his strengths, and he has his many flaws as well.  Just because he is the richest person on this planet doesn’t make him a perfect individual by any stretch of imagination.

So next time, when you’re planning your next big move, or making your next big investment, just know that you have to be okay with imperfection.  You have to know that your next big move will come with some baggage and uncertainty.  You need to know that your next big investment will come with certain risks or perhaps lesser returns.  You need to know that life is flawed wherever we go, and that is quite frankly okay.

Because there is no free lunch wherever we go.  Everything comes with a cost.  Everything comes with flaws.  That’s just the nature of the life we live in.  A perfect utopia, where everyone gets along and there are no problems whatsoever, is pure science fiction.  There will always be pushback.  There will always be worries.  And that is simply the human way of existence.