The fact that value is the issue of a process of sacrifice discloses the infinity of riches for which our life is indebted to this basic form. Because we strive to minimize sacrifice and perceive it as painful, we tend to suppose that only with its complete disappearance would life attain its highest level of value. But this notion overlooks the fact that sacrifice is by no means always an external barrier to our goals. It is rather the inner condition of the goal and of the way to it. Because we dissect the problematic unity of our practical relations to things into the categories of sacrifice and profit, of obstacle and attainment, and because these categories are frequently separated into differentiated temporal stages, we forget that if a goal were granted to us without the interposition of obstacles it would no longer be the same goal.

QUESTION: This challenges the instrumental view of sacrifice as a cost to minimize. Worth exploring whether goals attained without effort would be experienced differently in practice.

XREF: Resonates with psychological research on effort justification and counterintuitive findings that difficulty increases valuation, plus the 'IKEA effect' in behavioral economics.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 231