The law of demand

The law of demand in economics says, roughly, that the more something costs, the less people will buy it. And, conversely, the less something costs, the more people will buy it. This is one of those observations that, depending on your perspective, is either totally trivially obvious or profound with wide-ranging implications. I'd like to argue for the latter.

Cost isn't just money, it can be time, or inconvenience, or injury, or stern words from your parents. Anything that increases the total amount you have to give up, trade, lose, or suffer in order to get what you want. And this applies not just to financial transactions, but any situation where you have to choose between different options. In other words, most situations. So, to formulate it another way: all else being equal, you will tend to do things that are easier and require you to give up less to do them.

That "all else being equal" is an interesting one, because of course things aren't usually equal. Most likely there are some things you want more than others, even if they require more work. For something that you are deeply and profoundly passionate about, the law of demand probably doesn't matter that much. However, two things come to mind: firstly, there are many things that you might want to do but don't feel very strongly about, and secondly, even super important life goals can seem pretty dull at times, especially when compared with more immediately gratifying options.

So maybe in general things won't be equal, but I suspect that over the course of a given activity there would be a surprising number of points where the decision of whether to do it or go watch TV or whatever is a pretty close one. All you need is one of those decisions to lead away from the thing you'd rather do and then you're off track. And not just TV either, but even other useful or semi-useful activities that are justifiable but still not the best thing for you to be doing.

Which is all to say that I think the law of demand actually does affect our decisions on a regular basis. And what that means is you need to pay a lot of attention to what things cost. Are the things that you really want to be doing easy? Can they be made easier or otherwise less costly? Can you make the things you want to do less of harder or more costly? Some of these adjustments can be very minor, but still make a big difference.

It's not sufficient to say "well, it doesn't matter if it's hard, I want it enough that I'll do it anyway". There will be times when you lose sight of that desire, and in those moments having easy alternatives within reach is just tempting the law of demand.