Everything has some cost. 

We know that material things carry price tags.  Even intangibles - healthcare for instance - has costs.  But too often we do not realize that our behaviors and our decisions all have a cost.

Mothers who decide to work know they are making a decision that has costs, regardless of their decision. Getting married, going to college, starting a new career - all have recognizable costs, recognizable risks.    It is easy to be aware of the costs when we are making big decisions.

Little decisions, however, are made all the time, without a nod to any cost at all.  And sometimes these little decisions have big consequences.

One of my favorite commercials shows Mary Todd Lincoln asking Honest Abe if her dress makes her behind look big.  He knows there is no way to answer truthfully and not suffer the consequence, so he tries, unsuccessfully, to minimize the truth, but answers truthfully nonetheless.

How many of us think through our reply to these statements:

My mother is coming for Christmas week!

Can you give up golfing this Saturday to shop with me?

Are we ever going to get married?

Little decisions, however, are made all the time, without a nod to any cost at all.  And sometimes these little decisions have big consequences.

It is not just what we say, but how we say it, that often matters so very much.  We have to know what is truly important to the people who matter the most in our lives and what is not.

It is precisely at this time of year when emotions run high and joy is expected that we want to be sensitive.  There is, of course, no good time to be insensitive, but it is easier to repair a hurtful remark when it is not heard by the entire clan on Christmas, Chanukah or New Year's Eve.

A wise young woman told me recently that she did not like the condo her husband loved when they were looking to relocate to her home state.  'Then I realized that he was moving for me.  My family needed us at that time and he left a job he loved and a place he was happy with to move me back home.  The least I could do,' she confided, 'was to move into the condo he loved.'  Her parents, she shared, had taught her to always consider the cost of any decision.  Wise parents indeed.

Big decision or small decision, if we consider what we say and how we say it, for whatever decision we make, and weigh the cost, our chances at happiness are multiplied.  When in doubt, remember the Golden Rule and Do Unto Others.

Jean Loxley-Barnard has been a writer all her life and studied both sociology and psychology at George Washington University where she earned a B.A. Her company, The Shopper, Inc., encompasses all the Loxley-Barnard family publications - The Shopper Magazines and Doctor to Doctor Magazine. She has been in the advertising, consulting and publishing business for 39 years.