This might be part of a more general question about the concept of gain and loss. If it is, please refer me to that. My question is:
- Is it possible to say that we always lose as much as we gain?
- Is it possible to gain a lot without losing much?
This might be part of a more general question about the concept of gain and loss. If it is, please refer me to that. My question is:
Life is not a zero-sum game. This means there are situations where all can gain. Additionally there are many opportunities to gain without significant loss such as when two parties trade things they don't need for things they do. As different people have different needs and values they can both gain something of great value to them while only losing something of lesser value.
There's a common phrase in Economics, "There's no such thing as a free lunch". This refers to the opportunity cost of any action or transaction, and it holds true in all of Economic study. However, to say that because there is an opportunity cost means the gain and loss is equal require two conditions.
The cost is applied to you. In many cases this is not inherently the case. Receive a free lunch from your parents, they are really the ones paying the literal cost, not you. Your opportunity cost is really only the best thing you could have been doing instead of eating lunch. Same with something like government subsidies, you aren't really paying the cost, the government is. However, in both and most cases, this cost is very likely to trickle back to you, whether it's that much less money for your college tuition or that much more you have to pay in taxes next year.
The cost is equal to the free lunch This one is much harder to show is true, and in fact I'm not sure it is. My reasoning would be that, given the total amount of things you could do with any given amount of time or money, then this number is so large that it's very likely that the "next best thing" has a value as great or greater than whatever you are currently getting. That hour you spend eating a free lunch could, in all likelihood, have been used to do something as good or even better, and you are suffering the loss of not doing that thing even as you eat.
I don't like logical arguments much because they create false feeling of being close to the creator.
But here i would like to refer you to logic.
Think about your second question: Is it possible to gain much without losing much?
There is logical answer - if your gain is really MUCH then it is immediately cancelling the importance of your original possessions which have to be little then.
In real life you never have little, so it is not possible to gain much. All gains in my opinion are not real gains but rather ACTIVATIONS of already existing ideas and feelings inside of a given human.
According to karma you get what you give. Karma = cause and action (Wikipedia)
Now if you gain/retain you somehow get more than you give.
So there is an imbalance between the receiving and the giving part. Eventually the gap/difference between the giving potential and the actual giving could become to great.
But what you get must not be of the same form as what you give.
So that means you can offset your gain in one currency by providing or giving in another currency.
For example leadership.
So you could be a leader that gives leadership and receives sustenance and power in return. If you keep on giving good leadership then the universe or karma or people or your subconscious will help you in getting compensated accordingly.
So instead of asking, can you gain without loosing I'd ask. Can you loose without gaining?
The answer is of course yes. Every possession is a burden. If you loose a possession like an amulet or watch or anything ornamentally. You have lost an item but gained space to replace the item with another one. In essence you have regained freedom.