equivalent exchange

If you wanted something in life you must be willing to pay the price, that’s what I believe.
“Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is Alchemy's First Law of Equivalent Exchange”.
I’ve been saying that for years. When I was young, I thought that that was the general principle for everything. That Nothing comes free.
After growing up, I found that equivalent exchange still applies but not to every aspect of the world. Some people can go there whole life without doing anything and get everything they want, but isn’t it because there family payed the price by working to making that possible. On the other hand, people that are born into poverty try to pay the price to get out of that life but some just can’t climb out of the hole of poverty. If the world revolved around equivalent exchange, then why can’t those people get ahead? How about when little kids are getting killed during a war, they didn’t pay any price for that they had no chance of buying out death.
I think that equivalent exchange still applies in this world. If you want to be rich then you must be willing to work hard and make it happen, or if you want a successful business then you must be willing to put the effort into creating that dream. Equivalent exchange even determines the little things. For example, a little while back I was hoping for a great weekend. I didn’t have to work nor did my brother, and that weekend went perfect, nothing went wrong it was fun and we did everything I was hoping we could do. But doesn’t that come at a cost too? Well it did come at a price the following weekend when I had to work every day and so did my brother, also on top of that I was super sick to. That weekend was horrible. Isn’t that considered equivalent exchange?
How about the people that spend thousands of dollars and many years of their life going to college, don’t they do that to be able to get the job they always wanted inst that equivalent exchange. You can also think of money as equivalent exchange because aren’t you giving up money that you earned to buy things.
Now I don’t believe in God or any religion for that matter, nothing against the people who do but I don’t. I believe in equivalent exchange. I think many people believe in this Law but many don’t know that it was the general principle behind all alchemy in the time when alchemy was practiced. Many people don’t believe alchemy is possible, and that’s fine because the first law of equivalent exchange is still widely believed, and when I was growing up just like many other kids my parents taught me that you must work hard for what you want. You must be able to pay the price.
In those days, I really believed that equivalent exchange was the world's one, and only, truth. But the world isn't perfect, and the law is incomplete. Equivalent Exchange does not encompass everything that goes on, but I still chose to believe in its principle: that all things do come at a price, that there's an end and a way, that the pain we work through did have a reward, and that anyone who's determined and willing will get something of value in return.