Economics is about choices and life is a choice.
It affects everyone’s life each single day. We make economic decisions everyday, everything that involves choices and sacrificing one gain for another greater gain and what we choose is how our life turns to.
Every morning, should you hit the snooze button one more time, or get up now? The consequence is if you hit the snooze button, your incentive is more sleep, but you forgone the time to get yourself ready. Meanwhile, if you get up, your incentive is more time to get ready but your sacrifice is less sleep.
Also, being a working student, economics applies. If you choose to work in a fast food chain, your reward is minimum wage but the cost is less energy and time in performing school works resulting to poor academic performance. But if you prefer to work in university being a student assistant or librarian, there is less physical work and more energy and time to do school requirements, yet it is below the minimum salary.
Even in our dating life, economics rules. Take a speed-dating event; we wouldn’t be amazed to notice that tall men, thin women and high earners get more offers for dates. But if you go to an event where all men are less than six feet, they just get as many offers. This is for the reason that people adjust their standards to what they think they can get at the time.
People feel wealthier when they spend money on experience such as watching movies, going to Enchanted Kingdom, swimming in Boracay, dining in a restaurant with good ambiance rather than on material possessions.
Furthermore, in grabbing opportunities like having scholarship abroad for undergraduate needs a cost and benefit analysis. The cost is the time that you supposed to graduate early at your right age and escaping of cultural shock and home sickness. On the other hand, your benefits are long term attainment for your dream profession, prestige and financial support. It’s up to you to decide whether to accept or reject it.
And obviously economics is applied in business. Retailers intentionally make it less attractive to buy cheaper products. At least one juice company offers you three sizes of juice cups, but doesn’t publicize a fourth, extra small, because they want you to pay more. Though, some entrepreneurs do the reverse to have higher volume of sales. For instance, most of the carinderias now offer combo meals having the rice, vegetables, meat and soup yet it also offer single ordering but having a minimal difference with the amount of the former.
Consequently, Economics is about choices that play a vital role for our everyday life…because life is a choice.
–PUP Econres (by Katherine M. Villalobos)
