Because money isn't everything

@cregox Caue Rego
Thu, 02 Apr 2015 00:30:27 +0000
spoilers

@cregox wrote:

Not so sure why I'm writing this whole post...

I'm all in favor of capitalism and looking forward to the next big thing in economy. Maybe the world after the bitcoin apocalypse will be different enough to deserve a brand new name for the then novel economic order. But up to now, money does make some things more complicated than they should be.

And I do think creating a day for "paying forward" completely destroys the purpose! The original idea is also not that good. Way too much utopic! No surprise it didn't work. At least not as clearly and quickly as in the movie. I still think it does have its value and so...

Today I would(*) want to pay forward my best customers. Not just 3 of them, all of them. Though I can't say all my paying clients are great customers.

What constitutes a great customer, though? How can I classify you guys? What would happen to the ones left aside? How would I react myself if a supplier of mine would do something similar?

Well, I believe my company can pick and choose, and so I would(*). I also like to believe if it was done to me, I would stop and reflect on what I've been doing wrong, and try to improve. Though I might just leave, thinking I could never make it right with such high standards or even due to criterias I simply don't agree with. Even worst, I could get emotional and leave in anger, thinking "what a jerk". Of course.

I would(*) be choosing the best (argh) ones based on my own biased criteria. And it's very hard to choose how to pay you, because one of my criteria would be getting the ones who wouldn't really care about all this. Or at least that I perceive them as such.

Other very subjective criteria (not limited to):

you do your homework, do your research, give your best to help me on helping you.

show effort in reading since most of our communication happens through text and I've wrote a lot to help you already.

persuade me you did appreciate my work, because I did my best for every single one of you. People have always been my priority.

I was thinking about the movie, which I didn't watch at full... "What can I do for you, that you couldn't do yourselves?". Well, the answer is pretty obvious. You've already had the trouble to pay me to do it!

So, my plan is getting my free time this month, going through the websites from all of you who did register on these forums (plus a few more old ones who never had the chance of doing so) and trying my best to figure out something nice to set up.

I'll probably not be able to do it properly with everyone, and I'm not sure how to proceed after that... But at very least I'll have something done, even if only an unlisted page which you may be able to use it later. If you don't like it, I hope you'll at least realize the value of this attempt.

Of course I do have some "hidden" goals with doing this, it's not all that altruistic. It never is. It's our nature to fight for our own lives or else we'd be already dead. In the end, I want to help building up a better humanity (for myself including). Maybe the most selfish thing I want from all that is the satisfying feeling in knowing I did help. That I did matter. I guess the human meaning of selflessness could be something like "helping another person more than yourself". Funny thing how important it is to us to be that person.

Anyway...

After writing all to this point, reading again, remaking a few parts I did change one point... This point (*). Would. It used to say "will". Not anymore.

Instead of going with only the best customers, I'll just pay forward to all. All paid me and I did participate on the whole negotiation and agreements. If it wasn't a good enough deal for me, I'm to blame as well. But I will still classify the best ones who will still get more. More attention, more dedication. I think it's only fair. There should be some weight there... And there's probably no reason I should pick just a few as I wanted before.

There is much research that shows people might prefer getting a ticket for a huge bonus than sharing it with everyone and getting so little. Lottery probably exists for this very reason. Although maybe it exists because people are just too lazy or busy to think about it. Hey, I even play the lottery myself even if I don't agree with most of its existence! My rationale is:

I'm spending much less on lottery than on taxes and I'm at least helping making someone really happy, while taxes, at least in my country, help just a handful of corrupt people. I'd also rather be much more on the other end of the lottery ticket than on a government institution getting paid for doing a service I should be doing for free.

Of course main reason I play it is to have a shot at it... But that's just while I don't achieve my own financial freedom. I wonder if it would be actually really possible for everyone in the planet to achieve such a status, and how long it should take. Right now the common sense would tell us, 18-21 year old should be there, without needing to invest any money, but that's obviously not true.