Paying for it.

I think I've written before about how much I enjoy it when I'm reading a mystery, or just pulp, novel and I find a quotation or an idea that reaches out of the genre to speak to the reader. Sometimes it happens in little ways. In Black House Stephen King and Peter Straub spend a lot of time referencing and even mirroring passages of Bleak House. I think it's great because a whole bunch of folks who would never think of reading Bleak House will go and pick it up and check it out because it was in a novel they liked. Well, I like to think that happens.

In the novel I'm currently listening to, one character goes on a long diatribe about the quotation, "Take what you want and pay for it, says God." In the book it's supposed to be some sort of Spanish proverb, but who knows.

To me it is interesting to think about life that way, not just the material things. Of course we all pay a high price for the material 'things' we have, but what if you thought of everything in this way. What is the price we pay for love, friendship, family? Too often, I think we feel owed these elements. It doesn't occur to us that there is a consequence for every relationship. We just hope that the price will not come due, nor be too high.

Here's the most important part of this idea...we do not get to decide the price. The price is set before we ever see what's in the window. Because we don't often associate love, friendship, and family with a value/price, I think we tend to take them all for granted. So, I guess my goal, it not to give anything up, but to really accept what I have...consequences and all.