The Price of Viagra

Up in Huntsville Ontario at the beautiful Deerhurst resort for a summit.  No, not the G8 Summit, my invite arrived too late for that, but a Tourism Summit.

I purposely left early, if 10pm can be called leaving early, so I could blog and work on my e-book.  So I came back to my lovely and very spacious temporary abode and immediately began text messaging Cathy, my children and a couple friends.   Why not?  I've been out of touch, made some coffee in the meantime.  Okay so far.

Then I finally wrapped up my various conversations and promptly... checked the news and forums.  Why?  To relax, of course.  Should I have?  No of course not!  Waste of time.  An hour to an hour and a half of time, that I could have been writing or blogging or at the very least sleeping.

Why do we so often know what we want, know what to do, yet still not do it?  I'm hardly alone.

At the summit, one of the speakers, Prof. Ken Chan, in order to make a point, asked the audience if they felt there was benefit to being in top physical shape.   Of course, everyone acknowledges there is.  Then he asks if people know how to get in top shape.  Yes, generally, exercise, eat right, etc.  Then Prof. Chan asks how many in the audience of over 500 are now in top physical shape.     One hand.   I'd have put mine up but I've slacked off for the last two months.  Out of over 500 people who all agree it's worthwhile to have and even know what to do. One measly hand.   And we didn't believe him either.

You could argue people in the Tourism field are lazy and I concede more people would raise their hand if it was a firefighter summit but not for many other fields.  

Here was another interesting fact from Prof. Chan.   Pfizer (I think it's Pfizer) maker of Viagra, by Canadian regulations could only market their new product (Viagra) as one thing.   The drug was made for heart conditions, to help blood circulation but of course it had this interesting side effect of giving men erections.  They did some research and found if they sold it as blood pressure/heart medicine, it was the largest market in pharmaceutical business and growing as the baby boomers age.  But it's also highly contested.   So the price they could ask for as that would be $3 a pill.    However as the world's first effective erectile dysfunction medicine - an untested but also uncontested market - they could ask for $30.

Think about that.   Men would only pay $3 for medicine to keep them alive.  But the exact same medicine as a cure for erectile dysfunction? $30.  Or as Prof. Chan put it, $30 for a reason to keep on living.   Having no competition of course makes a huge difference but it also shows people's attitudes and what's truly important to them.   Joy is more important than life.

Joy >>>> Life.   And why not?  What's the point of life without joy?   If there's no joy, we're little better than roaches.   Just existing for the sake of existing and perpetuating the race.  We all need joy, crave joy, pursue joy.   There's nothing wrong in that!  Except we do it short sightedly most of the time.

Would writing my e-book have brought me more joy than giving my useless opinion that no one really cares about in a forum?  Not now.  The immediateness of some idiot's rebuttal (and frankly any of us wasting time on a forum to discuss some non-productive pastime like video games is an idiot) to my statement (and my ability to then prove my mental superiority by rebutting their rebuttal - maybe) is more compelling.  But in the long run, the reward of selling millions of copies of my e-book would be far, far more rewarding.  Of course, who's to say I'll sell millions of copies, or even one?   Well, to begin with, me.  And that's where any million seller has to start.  In someone's mind.  Might as well be mine.

So what's the point here?  We have to remain focused on the long term goal, not the short term fun.   Give yourself some goal posts and when you reach one reward yourself but stay focused on the long term goal.  Get those done and you'll be enjoying a life of joy, getting paid to do what you love to do anyway.  No, I don't mean writing on forums.  I'd hate to be paid for that.  What a waste.  To make a difference in people's lives?  Hell, yes!  I do that for free now.  Just for the joy of it.