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What at first glance sounds simplistic, can be very difficult to deal with on a day-to-day basis. Take the example of planning an international trip and specifically booking a flight. Our Travel agent works with us to help us articulate the dates, the cities we prefer or not prefer to have our layover, the latest we want to reach or the earliest we can afford to leave and gets us the perfect flight. We check online for the same ticket and find it cheaper by 15% and an additional cashback offer of 10%!! What do we do?
The online portal is willing to deliver value to us but what our agent did was really valuable, wasn’t it?
Exercising judgement on the right thing to do, is easy when we are not IN the situation. But how many times have we amazoned a laptop rather than buy it from our age-old vendor who had always done more than his or her call of duty for us, because “it’s obvious to buy it from the cheaper seller”!!?!? It is considered ‘normal’ to buy from the cheaper vendor, but when we do that, we are basically putting ‘value’ over all else.
That is perfectly acceptable as per current social norms, or is it?
And here’s the big surprise!! We don’t just do this to ‘others’. We regularly do it to ourselves! We don’t spend time with our dearest ones because it’s ‘normal’ to go to work and earn money even though we have enough money, such that money itself is not going to be ‘valuable’ to us. But it will certainly be of ‘value’.
We need to stop elaborating here because the difference is really simple. The problem is, that it is not as obvious.
Running after value is like a fast train travelling straight ahead with sheer momentum. The tracks have changed direction and turned, but the train completely missed the turn! After decades of economic progress that have served us well in many ways, it is now taking away from us what is valuable and replacing it with what has ‘value’.
What was once freely available, is now only available in oxygen bars, bisleri bottles, stand up comedy shows and expensive apartments with ‘breathtaking views’. Do we realize how little it costs to sit on the edge of a valley and have a far more beautiful view?
- Devang Shah
November 1, 2021
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