FREE's HIDDEN cost!

Free Ain’t Good And Good Ain’t Free

Now this may go against all that we have been taught in regards to "getting ahead", "taking what we can get", "not being too proud to accept a free lunch", blah blah blah.  Most advice that deals with success and progress not only demands that we take all that we can for free, it shames us for doing the opposite.  To the norm, "free" is an offering that advantages the person who accepts it with no cost to anyone.  But this is not true.

Entitled To “Believe” In FREE

Regardless of if we ever get to actually see the person who is footing the bill for that which made it to our hands for free, there is a bill.  Free classes cost teachers and trainers their time without pay along with the costs to the owner for rent & electricity.  Free taste tests cost the time of the person who cooked it and the money of the person who bought the ingredients to make the food.  Even free water costs the labor of the men and women who constructed the items to bring the CLEAN free water to us.  Everything costs whether we can see the bill or not and I will explain soon why we should always acknowledge this truth.

Don’t Be Greedy Just Because

When we are offered something for free that we aren't willing to pay for, we should not accept it out of respect.  The reason behind this is that we can almost be certain that a person who is offering something for free usually is doing it to promote something that they would like purchased from them.  If we already know that we would never purchase the offer we are knowingly wasting a piece of their promotion, and work by accepting that which the person could have given to someone else who may have purchased from them.  Of course one could argue that the little that they accept could never cause any harm and this may be true.  But if we're one of the many who “take”, we may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

Consider What Others Don’t

It is an unspoken act of compassion for us to deny a free item, or service from the person who offers it to us, with our intentions being that we don’t cause harm to them.  If we can keep the truth in our minds that even though the free item, or service is worthless to us it is valuable to the one who is offering it for free.  In fact, it may be his or her livelihood.  The existence of this fact automatically demands that we should behave with sensitivity and respect towards the item or service as well as the gifting person.

(read the rest of this chapter in "The WARRIOR'S EDGE" book.)