Response to Quality and Contribution
In response to Steve Pavlina’s Quality and Contribution post.
In my opinion, Steve presents the concept of quality and contribution of both the economy and personal quality of life as a philosophical approach to work and life, and their balance. First he goes to illustrate a familiar example asking how people can spend what seemingly is a significant dollar figure on a pair of shoes. He goes on to explain that to some people it may happen that the higher cost of premium goods could potentially be justified by the hassles that comes with average or sub-par goods. Such as having a good pair of shoes that will last 10 years versus shoes that may cost less but requires replacing on a regular bases. At this point he’s introducing the subject of income versus the quality-cost trade-off. Going onto detail about his first point, Steve elaborates more on the subject of income versus the quality-cost trade-off. Those with a lower income may lean towards cost over quality, while those with higher incomes may lean more towards quality over cost. As for his second and third points, he presents his idea on two possible attitudes you can have towards those with really high incomes that would lean extremely on the quality side of the quality-cost trade-off. Either to be “outraged” by the extreme amount of money flinging, or to consider it a “contribution” due to the extreme amount of money flinging.
Personally, I grew up in an environment that taught me to save up my money. Buying only necessities and not splurging on luxuries that are not needed, except on occasions. This was pretty much true for all of my childhood and student life, as personal income was scarce. Once I started to work, my take on spending drastically changed. I would say that I splurge on more than I should and unfortunately don’t save quite as much as I would like to.
But back to Steve’s point, all my purchases, I would always consider the question “Is this worth the price tag?” Pre-income times, I would say practically all my purchases fall somewhere along the lines of: second cheapest please. I could not stand the purchase the cheapest item there was. As seemingly always is the case for the cheapest item, it overly sacrifices quality for that couple of dollar reduction in price. Now though, I would say, “As long as it’s under 3 figures, then I don’t even give it a second thought.” Of course on the premise that the item is the best suit to my current and potential future needs. 3+ figure price tags usually take a couple of minutes of thought just to make sure that I would indeed find a use for the item, as merely stuffing it in the corner is still a costly “solution” to a fancy toy.
But one idea that Steve does talk about is the idea of trickle-down economics, where wealthier individuals are taxed less so that they would be more inclined to spend and thus “trickle-down” their wealth to the general population, through purchasing of goods and services. Whether or not this effect actually takes place is another topic for another time and would not be discussed here.