After receiving another orthopedic bill from my daughter’s sports injury, I started thinking that kids seem too eager to visit the doctor’s office, and the doctors seem too eager to provide the latest boot, cast  or other orthopedic apparatus.   Health care has become very expensive even with insurance in place.

When I was a kid going to the doctor was not really a big deal because it was covered by insurance.  You did what you did, and if you got hurt it was covered by insurance.  Nowadays going to the doctor is more expensive because insurance companies are implementing behavior modification devices through higher deductibles and copays.

And even though I end up paying more for patient care, I think the behavior modification devices are a good thing.  They make us more accountable for our behavior and actions.  Having skin in the game for health care may make us “think” more about what we are doing and how we can improve our own situations.   They incentivize “self-help.”

Could it be that God created life with the same “self-help” principles in mind?  Just like deductibles and copays incentive “self-help” in health care, “consequences” may incentivize “self-help” in life.  Consequences are life’s behavior modification devices.   In life we have freedom to decide whatever we want.  It’s how we grow.   But our decisions don’t go unchecked.   We are provided feedback through consequences.

If we don’t like the consequences in our lives, it may be life’s signal that the decisions we are making are not in our own best interests – that they are not promoting development and growth.   Consequences may life’s feedback that we need to reevaluate our decisions.

We can ignore consequences or blame others for them, but at the end of the day returning to the “hospital” for the latest “apparatus” can become very “expensive.”

Timothy Velner is a husband, father, attorney and author living in Minneapolis. You can follow his daily blog – a series of discussions between the worry-self and the present-self at – thespiritualgym.me