Virtues over Profits
Someone got a little better today because of you. And that's a win
If I were rich enough, filthy rich, maybe I would purchase yesterday or recover the days I felt slipped away by empty. Then start living again, step by step, like a sage with ready-made answers to the life's most hardest questions. My goal can be to do many things, hoard as many as I can, get more than I deserve, bankrupt my way, but today, maybe because I am well-mothered, coupled with my thin pockets, I may not quench my expensive taste.
The economic engines humanity has built is not a flaw; we are witness to the ingenuities we use everyday. it's admittedly the engine of evolution. It has built civilizations, driven science, birth language, and kept every conceivable idea aflame.
Absorbing roles are played, choices are made, yes, but they are shaped by hunger; for money, for status, for validation. And it consumes all of us; it makes us fall into the habit of not staring ourselves in others. And this is where we find ourselves in, like lost sheep huddled under a tree; highly developed but fractured with a loose nut on what makes us human.
The economic masks we wear everyday is not just a way of earning a living. It’s our second skin. It's a trap in the form of externalised perks. A batch of numbers we gloss over, the performance metrics—both individual and organizational—we obsess over in our stuffed offices is the cruelest weapon to compute the break-even of ourselves. The very thing that we thought would free us only deepens our captivity.
The way we reason, the way we judge, the way we relate, the way we measure our worth, we attach some clusters of numerics. We have slipped into the material calculus, busying our minds with debiting and crediting our everyday interactions.
This identity we've adorned, the what-do-you-do identity, however, is not the problem—how people do and perceive it is. The feeling we believe we will buy with it; validation, power, love—is fleeting. We may get away with it but we remain bankrupt, with the ashes of our hollow lives visible. This crippling mindset morphs into a stand-in for meaning in a world that's lost its connection to the soul.
It has splashed over to basics that means a great deal to society and one with which no price tag is needed but it is. A judge ruling for money classes justice a luxury affair and unimaginable by those who need it most. He spares no time to be a humanitarian or a kind-hearted human being. He therefore doesn't see it as a chance to stand up against injustice. Yet, this isn't a job. This isn't a position. It's a megaphone for justice. It's a pulpit to resurrect justice, to seek truth, to deflate lies.
A child moulded similarly on academic excellence over wholistic personal growth may not be set off in the direction of unshakable character to withstand the tempting glamor of overachievement, fame, instant validation, power. Their future is quietly bankrupted, their virtuous growth stolen, their identity spoilt. Their innocent minds radicalized with a promise of a better life than the current, making them drawn in self-doubt and wandering if they're never enough for themselves.
But, we still have enough time from our crowded days to redeem our stolen selves from years of conditioning. By only letting your character be superior to the requirements of an absorbing job and not vice versa. Honest hustles are built on a sacred foundation; integrity. You refuse, say, to cut corners in sourcing raw materials. You lose on short-term but your win on long-term is a win for society. You earn admiration for your ethical stand over profits.
In a world brainwashed with productivity as a new religion, an office a temple, output a social standing, Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations, posed piercing questions "Why are you trying to be a better wrestler?" He writes "but not a better person, a better forgiver of faults, a better friend in tight places?" Instead of asking “what do you do?” we can replace with “What kind of person are you?”
When you absorb this tactful question into your life, whether you win or lose, you've chosen the less trodden path of virtues not because you have much but because your values trumps profit. Your why triumphs and forges for healthy society that rests not in domination but in coordination where strength serves all—not just self. You flash your warm, reassuring smile to sun-bath hustler squeezed under the harshest corner of the unforgiving street. Your extractive feelings doesn't find space to injure anyone.
If you're a doctor, you can go home knowing someone got another lifeline because of you. If you're a watchman, the neighborhood felt safe because of your presence. If you're a teacher, one got wise today... There is plenty of breathing room to be productive and useful to someone even in the most miniscule way.
Because you've refused to be greedy, self-serving, irresponsible, self-destructive. You understand that the current economic race is wrapped in dominance and external conquest but the goal is not to peak. The goal is to desire less and become more of someone who can contribute meaningfully. And that person is carved out by the humanized economic engine; virtues over profits.
Lovely essay, Edwin