Giving Up

My son, as part of his senior seminar, was asked a number of character-related questions. The one that had him calling his parents to ask for help was this one: What would you be willing to sacrifice? I was pleased to hear that he had not included "soul" on his list, but then we began to discuss the matter moving forward. What would he, or anyone else preparing to leave the relative safety net of the college experience, be willing to part with as he makes his way out into the cold, cruel world?
We tossed around a few possibilities, settling for a while on the issue of morality. Would he be willing to sacrifice a little of that character we have so carefully built in order to get ahead? Again, I was happy that the abrupt answer came back, "No." Even when shoved up against a quandary like, "What if you could make two hundred thousand dollars a year that might do some harm to the planet instead of a sixty thousand dollar a year job that has a clean environmental slate? There was some haggling here, as he suggested that he could take some of that additional salary and funnel it back into fixing the problems he created. Still, sorry no deal.
He was willing to give up his social life. His mother and I flinched a little once we were assured that meant that he would keep in touch with his family, and that he wasn't willing to do this forever since his wish is to have a family of his own someday.
I knew this, by the way, ahead of time. Since he was in high school, he has talked about settling down with a wife and kids in terms of "when" rather than "if." This was the part of raising a kid that I deemed totally worth it since he wasn't afraid of following in some of his dad's footsteps. So, raising his own family was not a sacrifice he was willing to make.
All of this talk of sacrifice made me wonder if I had sacrificed anything in order to get where I am today. I couldn't say at this point if I had given anything up or if it was simply that the universe had denied me a chance to turn something down. I could say that I gave up drinking, but in reality I believe it was drinking that gave up on me. This was right about the time that others were starting to give up on me, so it turned out that it wasn't much of a sacrifice after all.
Interestingly, this was another thing that my son has on his schedule. He says he wants to retire from drinking by the time he's thirty. That doesn't give him a lot of time for those leftover wild oats, but I suppose I have to respect that he would consider that kind of choice while he's still in the middle of his funtime.
I suppose that's why they call it a sacrifice.