Utter Failures

I know this thought isn't revolutionary -- I don't know if I heard it from somewhere or if I just sort of learned it on my own and put it to words. But sometime around college it occurred to me that when you say "yes" to one thing, you have to say "no" to another. In the example of college, if I said "yes" to this class, I would be saying "no" to others. "Yes" to shopping meant "no" to studying, etc. Later on, the personal applications changed, but the idea stayed true. "Yes" to paying the energy bill meant "no" to whatever thing(s) I had in my Amazon cart. Or, more personally, "yes" to spending Christmas with this side of the family meant "no" to that side. "Yes" to game night with friends meant "no" to date night with just the two of us. None of the "yes" answers in my examples are bad. None of the "no" answers are either. It's ...