Everybody's Got a Price

When I was young, I thought “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase was the most evil man in the world. He would pay people to perform insulting tasks for his pleasure and arrogantly insist that everybody had a price. Obviously as I got older I realized that 1) he was merely playing a character and 2) he was actually one of the nicer people around. I never forgot his cackle and catchphrase. The older I got, the more I realized that everybody does indeed have a price.

Now before you get offended and send me hate mail and empty threats, allow me to explain myself. The price I am referring to does not necessarily correlate to greed. Sure, I have often joked that if I had a price it would be a Shamrock Shake. Honestly, my price is not that cheap. The fact of the matter is that while we choose to believe that our personal code of conduct is concrete and static, offers and circumstances appear to challenge those codes. A person with a crippling fear of public embarrassment might put away those fears if they were given a Toyota Corolla for free. Others might hold out for something more extravagant like a Ferrari or a Lamborghini. When we were in junior high, two of my friends sold the real name of another one of our classmates for spare change and giant Cheez-Its. Everybody’s got a price.

Again, let me reiterate that greed is not the only driving force behind our prices. Sometimes we are willing to compromise our code of conduct when we determine that what we want or need outweighs what we must sacrifice. People believe in certain things, but I would wager that they would (at least temporarily) put them aside if someone they love was in danger. We reach a breaking point where what we want or need overrides the rules and regulations we establish for ourselves.

Even this blog has a price. I have maintained this blog for years because I enjoy writing and expressing myself and a plethora of other reasons that will be further detailed in a later blog this year. But times are tough. Recently I realized I could be getting money for doing something I enjoy. Certainly I have had to tweak some things a bit. Instead of posting hidden links for the benefit of my lone subscriber to this blog, I now post advertisements. I have to alter the content of some of my posts or even write about things I had no intention of writing about. I never thought I would be talking about Chicago auto repair or water pump replacement, but due to the fact that professionally I am not quite where I want to be, I had to do some things I did not expect to do. Am I a sellout? Call me what you will, but everybody’s got a price.

Now that I have established my belief that everybody has a price, I need to say that it is not necessarily a bad thing. Complete rigidity in our lives is not a positive. That said, here are some little tips for maintaining your price. First, don’t sell out for just anyone or anything. You have a code of conduct for a reason. Complete fluidity is as much of a negative as complete rigidity. Second, ask yourself if it is truly worth it. Balance the gain against the loss. Finally, though we all have a price, make sure your price is high. Hold out to make sure the positive outweighs the negative.