Every Decision You Make Comes with Hidden Costs

The following is adapted from Responsibility Rebellion.

Black Friday is a blight on my calendar. I dread getting caught in the melée as the unruly hordes rush forth, determined to scoop up the cheapest TVs and the latest in vacuum technology. On that dark day, otherwise lovely people trample with abandon and toss civility to the wind. 

But let’s not be too hard on the Black Friday shoppers. After all, they’re just doing what their biology is telling them to—they’re chasing pleasure in order to fulfill their needs. It’s a basic instinct of human behavior.

Whether it’s in front of a binge-worthy meal or an addictive TV show, we’ve all flooded our brains with dopamine, a chemical that, if personified, would take the form of Roald Dahl’s Veruca Salt and burst into the refrain, “Don’t care how, I want it now!” 

Still, we can probably agree that relying on instinct and instant gratification aren’t necessarily the best ways to make decisions. People who frequently make decisions based on these simplistic biological instincts often end up feeling stagnant, stalled, or unsatisfied with their lives. 

When you focus on immediate gratification, you often miss out on the long-term benefits of other, healthier decisions. It might just seem like one moment of indulgence, but that choice comes with a lot of hidden costs.  

In order to break the cycle, you have to become aware of your impulses, learn to weigh the hidden costs behind every decision, and assess the long-term consequences of your choices. When you turn off your brain’s inner Veruca Salt, it’s much easier to see the true consequences of every decision you make.  

The Problem with the Pleasure Principle

Our brains are predisposed to make decisions based on what gives us pleasure. In psychology, this is known as “the pleasure principle.” At its core, the pleasure principle compels people to gratify their needs, wants, and urges quickly, whilst avoiding pain and discomfort. 

Biologically speaking, the pleasure principle is important. It’s what drives us to breathe, eat, sleep, and drink when we need to. It ensures we fulfil our essential and justifiable needs. The problem with the pleasure principle is that it lacks parameters.

Just consider: when faced with a choice between kale salad and chocolate cake, which one gives you more pleasure? Cake, hands down. 

Choosing cake one time may not be that bad. But when you become habituated to making pleasure-based decisions, it becomes a lot harder to say no. You’re much more likely to make impulsive decisions without considering the hidden long-term costs. If you consistently give into the cake impulse, you might look up in several years and wonder where your health, self-esteem, and self-control have gone.  

In theory, we should only crave things which are essential to our survival, but our minds trick us into craving anything we want. We find ourselves needing alcohol, junk food, those new shoes, the latest gym gear, the newest phones, televisions, cars, and that latest designer bag everyone seems to have. 

Things get even trickier when the pleasure principle shows up in more complicated, less clear-cut ways. Take, for example, the concept of crash dieting. Why slowly trim your calories by just 500 a day and lose a pound a week when you can slash them by 1,000 calories a day and lose over two pounds? Crash dieting isn’t pleasurable; in fact, it makes people utterly miserable. But the results are quick and the thrill of a noticeable change is addictive, so people chase that instant pleasure. 

The pleasure principle interferes with our ability to have a realistic sense of timing and patience when it comes to nonessential needs. It also interferes with our ability to step back and look at our choices from a more comprehensive angle. The pleasure principle forces us to overlook our decisions’ opportunity costs.  

Your Life is Directed by Opportunity Costs

Every time you choose to do something in life, you are choosing not to do something else. This is known as opportunity cost—the possibilities you miss out on by making a certain decision. For example, when you choose to spend three hours a day on social media, you are choosing not to work on your project, yourself, your relationship, your business, or your skill.

When you make decisions based on the pleasure principle, you are, by definition, costing yourself in some other way. Let’s return to the cake example. If you give into your craving and gorge yourself on cake, you might feel good in the moment, but there will be lots of opportunity costs. You might feel sick later, run your blood sugar too high, or gain weight and start feeling insecure. Or, maybe you miss out on a friend’s offer to go out for dinner because you’re still full from your afternoon cake binge. 

Your pleasure principle is so strong that it often causes you to overlook the hidden opportunity costs at stake in your decisions. Often, those costs far outweigh the pleasure of your initial decision, especially when you consider them cumulatively.  

Any time you make a decision, don’t just follow the path of pleasure. Ask yourself, “How does this fit in with my long-term goals?” Do I want to lead a healthier lifestyle? If so, then I will probably be better served going for a run than by binge-watching television. Do I want to be a better guitar player? Then, I better take the time to practice, even if I don’t want to right now. 

Asking yourself these questions doesn’t mean that you will never give in to your desire for pleasure. After all, you might decide that the costs are relatively low. But you will be far better served if you get used to assessing the hidden costs of your decisions before you act. 

Get in Tune with Your Decision-Making Process

I’ll be honest. Opportunity costs can be intimidatingly unpredictable. There’s no real way to know whether or not certain decisions will come back to haunt you in old age. You can never be certain that, if you quit your miserable job, you won’t be just as miserable at the next one. 

Still, it’s much easier to assess your decisions’ hidden costs if you can quell the impulsive voice of your pleasure principle. There are many scenarios in our daily lives when it’s clear we’re responding to our inner Veruca Salt. Every time we eat, shop, use our time a certain way, or prioritize feeling good, it’s important for us to pause and ask, “What are the hidden costs that my pleasure principle is causing me to miss right now?” 

Even if you can’t accurately calculate every opportunity cost, half the battle is simply knowing that they exist. The key to making great choices is understanding how you make choices in the first place. When you know the factors driving your decisions, you’ll be exponentially more confident when you make them. 

For more advice on decision-making, you can find Responsibility Rebellion on Amazon.

Kain Ramsay is the top-ranked psychology and personal growth instructor at Udemy and founder of Achology.com, an academy devoted to teaching modern methods and principles of applied psychology. Known for his trademark teaching style, Kain delivers highly sought-after programs that include Mindfulness, Life Coaching, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. In 2018, he partnered with world-renowned author Gerard Egan to produce an online adaptation of Egan’s international bestselling book, The Skilled Helper.