Do You Know The Best Things in Life are not free?
Here is Why
We often come across adverts that say, buy two get one free. The vendors in this case try to sound like they are giving free stuff. But the cost of getting the freebie is by first purchasing. This does leave one wondering, is there any free thing out there today? The cost of living is rising every single day. Even the cost of the most freely available things is gaining momentum. Therefore, one has to wonder are free things truly free.
Gone are the days when one could stroll off to the countryside, go out on a picnic and have fun. Today, almost every single piece of land has an owner. If there is no private owner putting up a ‘do not trespass sign’, then there is the government protecting the wildlife and the game. Today you cannot, for the love of hunting, pick a gun and down a stray, wild rabbit. If the animal rights activists got wind of what you have done, you will sure face the music. Then you will wonder when it is that animals started having a soul. It was especially amusing to me the first time I saw bottled water. I wondered who in their right mind could go around selling water. Today I think not having bottled water would be catastrophic. There is so much pollution that one would rather not risk taking just any water you find flowing in a stream. And the prices of water have risen tremendously. Even for the piped water that we find in our homes is something to reckon with. Whenever the bill arrives, you have to remind yourself again and again that you are paying for water and not gas.
Walking in the beach has always been a fun thing to do. It feels so right to walk around in the sand and see all those shells and pebbles on the coastline. Wouldn’t they look fabulous in a glass jar seated in your study at home? But stop! You cannot; the beach patrol will have you prosecuted if you do. Those shells and pebbles are not free anymore. They used to but now they are not. So what is truly free; there has to be something. They do talk about free speech and the freedom to speak to anyone, wherever and whenever. But before you say that it is free, consider the monthly bill that you pay to the cell phone company for freely talking to friends and relatives. No one can stop you from talking to your loved ones anytime you want to. However, whenever you do so, remember there will be a bill to pay at the end of the month.
For having the summer that we so much enjoy, there is the price of having to go through three other seasons. To enjoy that kind of sunlight that we see, we have to have the sun up in the sky, at the right angle, the right level and with just the right light waves. The cost of that is that there are those who have to bear having no sun at all and others having to do with extremely hot conditions. If the situation were to change a bit, our country would instantly turn into a desert, and some other countries in the equatorial regions would become Iceland. There is a cost to having things the way they are. Even to enjoy leisure, you either have to pay for cable TV, pay air fare to go see grandma, the county council has to install bins to keep the park clean, and staffs have to be employed to keep the parks spruced up.
Therefore, the best things in life are certainly not free. They may be available and not purchasable with money, but there is a cost to having everything as it is.
