What you don’t count may be what costs you most, or grows you most.

Prologue: The Line Between Awareness and Condemnation

I’m a strong critic of myself because I’m a firm believer in self-awareness. But self-criticism needs to be handled carefully. It’s very different from self-condemnation.

When I criticise myself, I do it to acknowledge that things can be better, not to dwell on what went wrong. I learn, adjust, and move forward with a new direction. It doesn’t mean I think any lesser of myself. It simply means I believe growth starts with honesty.

As a counsellor, one might focus on the past event. But as a coach, I’m more interested in the future, in possibilities, dreams, and the potential waiting to be unleashed.

The Price You Don’t See

It’s getting harder to think clearly. My mind feels noisy. My spirit is restless. My body is fine, but my emotions are dull and my soul feels heavy.

I feel spiritually guilty, as if I’ve disappointed what God designed me to become. It’s the kind of guilt that doesn’t shout but lingers quietly, like static in the background. I know I haven’t been still enough to hear. I haven’t been faithful enough to follow through.

Time is my greatest resource, and lately, I’ve treated it carelessly. My thoughts have been dull and unfocused. I scroll, I drift, I rush. Yet deep down I know this isn’t how I’m meant to live. I’m supposed to steward my time, not waste it. That morning in Muar reminded me how easily time slips through our hands when we forget its cost.

We get frustrated when airlines add hidden fees or when a cheap flight suddenly becomes expensive. We complain about cleaning charges in Airbnb listings and the fine print that changes everything. Yet in life, we make the same mistake.

We count the visible cost, the registration fee, the petrol, the hotel, but ignore the invisible ones: fatigue, lost time, missed clarity, and emotional drift. Everything has a cost, even what feels free. The danger is not in paying it but in being unaware of it. Because when you fail to count what you’re paying, you also fail to notice what you could be gaining.

Research says the average person makes around 35,000 decisions a day, and mental fatigue can reduce accuracy by almost 40 percent. Nearly half of our waking hours are spent distracted. Awareness itself has become a scarce resource. Maybe that’s why guilt so often begins with noise, not evil, just endless noise.

The Hackathon That Taught Me Accounting All Over Again

It was almost three in the morning when I reached Muar after a full-day Personal IP Hackathon in Kuala Lumpur. I should have been asleep, but my mind was awake, replaying the day and questioning my own discipline.

The event was valuable. Coaches, clients, and the public gathered to refine their ideas. The public paid RM3,000; we paid RM500. I remember thinking, “We’re only paying seventeen percent of the full fee.”

But somewhere between fatigue and reflection, another thought surfaced: What if that seventeen percent isn’t the full story?

If I only saw the RM500, I was fooling myself. The real price was far higher. I had travelled eight hours, attended twelve more, missed a full day of work, and been away from my family. I had traded time, the one resource I can never recover.

There were the tangible costs, accommodation, petrol, tolls, food, and the quiet ones, like the wear on my car and the risk of driving at night. I told myself, this is unacceptable, not because I failed, but because I knew better. The accountant in me had failed to account for what truly mattered.

Even if the hackathon had been free, the cost would still have been high. I would still have paid in energy, focus, and time.

It reminded me of the first time I flew a budget airline. The ticket was cheap, but everything else came with a price: water, luggage, even seat selection. What seemed affordable suddenly became expensive because I hadn’t counted the hidden costs.

That’s life. We spend our time, attention, and relationships like unlimited currency, and we only wake up when the bill comes due. Economists call it opportunity cost. Leaders call it stewardship. The truth is, you can’t avoid cost; you can only choose which one you’ll pay.

Counting What Can’t Be Seen

When I dissected the trip, seven layers of cost became clear.

First, travel time. Eight hours on the road. Second, the twelve-hour event itself. Third, one full workday lost. Fourth, family time sacrificed as my wife covered for me. Fifth, the direct monetary expenses: petrol, tolls, accommodation, and food. Sixth, hidden maintenance like tyre wear and car depreciation. Seventh, risk. Every kilometre travelled at night carries probability and exposure.

Most people only see the last one, the RM500. But the other six are the real cost of participation. And beyond these seven, there was one more: time that will never return.

It may sound calculative, but this is not about numbers. It’s about awareness. I’m an accountant by training, but this reflection isn’t about finance. It’s about resourcefulness, understanding that every choice, even the smallest one, carries an unseen price.

That awareness separates leaders from wanderers. The messy, the neat, the busy, the reflective, the difference isn’t personality. It’s whether they know what they’re really paying for.

Awareness Turns Cost into Opportunity

As I sat that morning in Muar, my frustration softened into reflection. The issue wasn’t what I had paid; it was whether I was conscious of it and what I would do with that awareness. That shift changed everything.

Suddenly, the three-day trip wasn’t a waste; it was an investment. I met my mentor. I reconnected with people I hadn’t seen for years. I had quiet moments with God that restored my alignment. Those moments were worth far more than the money.

Even in the way I live, my messy office, cluttered bag, and scattered desk, I see the same truth. Order isn’t about neatness; it’s about awareness.

Studies from the University of Minnesota show that messy desks increase creativity by 28 percent, while tidy spaces increase routine accuracy. Steve Jobs’ desk was famously chaotic, yet his priorities were crystalline. Leadership isn’t about tidying everything up. It’s about knowing what to keep and what to let go.

Awareness turns cost into opportunity. The most expensive thing in life isn’t what you pay for. It’s what you ignore.

Financial Literacy and the Cost of Choice

I’m reminded of my son, standing in a 7-Eleven with a ten-ringgit note. Everything he saw cost less than ten ringgit, and he thought he could buy them all. I smiled and told him, “You can only pick one.” He froze, realising that choosing is also paying.

That day he learned a truth most adults forget: you can have almost anything, but not everything. The question isn’t “Can I afford it?” It’s “What will I exchange for it?”

That’s the essence of financial literacy — understanding cost, value, and trade-off. My mother once forced me to study accounting, a subject I hated then but have come to treasure. Because it taught me this: life is full of decisions, and every decision comes with a cost.

Awareness of cost doesn’t make you calculative. It makes you resourceful. It keeps you from drifting into the illusion that “free” means costless. The truth is, the freest things in life are often the most expensive to sustain.

The Theology of Costly Grace

Scripture says, “Freely you have received; freely give.” But freely received never means received without cost. Everything free to us was costly to someone else. Salvation was free, but it cost blood. Grace was given freely, but it demanded sacrifice.

That’s the heart of stewardship, to recognise that what we hold lightly was once carried heavily by another. That awareness separates us from instinct. We are made in His image, designed to steward, not drift.

When we lose sight of cost, we lose gratitude. When we lose gratitude, we lose purpose.

Count the Cost. Then Multiply the Return.

Hidden costs aren’t there to discourage us; they exist to sharpen us. Counting them doesn’t make you calculative; it makes you conscious. Awareness is the first step toward stewardship. Stewardship is what transforms cost into compounded opportunity.

You can spend three days and lose them forever. Or you can redeem those same three days by drawing wisdom, connection, and gratitude from them.

Research at Harvard found that people who spend fifteen minutes reflecting daily improve performance by twenty-three percent. Neuroscientists call it memory consolidation through reflection. In other words, growth doesn’t happen in the reward. It happens in the reflection.

This is the cost of commitment, the hidden exchange every purposeful leader must learn to account for. When you live with that awareness, gratitude deepens, clarity sharpens, and energy returns. You stop trying to preserve what costs nothing and start investing in what multiplies meaning.

Time can’t be managed, but priorities can. You can’t buy back yesterday, but you can make today count for eternity. Time is the one currency everyone receives equally but spends differently. Hidden costs will always exist, but so will hidden opportunities, if you learn to see them.

In a world where one person can build a billion-ringgit idea with a laptop and clarity, the sky truly is the limit when you choose to count it, redeem it, and multiply it.

Count it. Redeem it. Multiply it.

The Reverse That Redefines It All

The opposite of loss is not gain. It’s awareness.

When you become aware of what you’re truly paying, you stop treating life as a transaction and start living it as stewardship. You stop saying, “I wasted three days,” and start asking, “What did these three days teach me that nothing else could?”

That is the hidden opportunity.

Growth doesn’t happen in the reward; it happens in the reflection. What began as guilt ends in gratitude. Because grace doesn’t erase cost, it redeems it.

The cost didn’t change. I did.

But the time was redeemed.