Counting the Cost
I remember when I got my first distinction in medical school. I was over the moon. My biological father wanted to commemorate the occasion with a gift. He asked me what I wanted. Precedent told me I wasn’t going to get anything, but I still went ahead to ask for a fridge. I knew I was about to start my clinical rotations, with 12 hour days and much studying after. I simply needed to be able to batch cook food and not worry about my food spoiling.
He made it seem I was asking for the moon and stars. He felt I should have asked for something cheaper. He wouldn’t be able to afford a fridge for me and my siblings. (My siblings told him they didn’t want one. One of them was about to graduate and the other was in final year.) I knew we weren’t rich, but we weren’t living hand to mouth either. His reaction made me feel so guilty. I thought a small fridge cost about 100-200k.
Few months later, I decided to go to LG shop in Benin. To my utter surprise, I could get a table top fridge for 12k! And a bedside one for 27k! Shocked is an understatement for what I felt. I had only gone window shopping but I left that day with my bedside fridge and a stabiliser. I had a scholarship then, and I was doing some small business so I had some money to look after myself.
Fast forward six years. I was working in a state teaching hospital. I met a lady who had been managing some health problems at home. She needed an operation but she thought the costs would be prohibitive. She was stunned when she finally came to the hospital and found out the cost of the operation was 15k! And she had been suffering for years!
Sometimes we make things bigger in our minds than they really are. The Bible says “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish – lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him...” But some of us are so limited in our thinking that we don’t even count the cost. We just believe it’s too much.
Whether it be medical issues, business ventures, whatever your heart desires, find out the facts first. Then you can decide how or if to proceed. Knowledge is power.