This is a philosophical statement. It is intended to spark thinking and examining.

“I pledge to pay people what I can.
Not what I can get away with.”

I saw that quote on a business’ webpage recently. The quote is worth sitting with for a few minutes just on itself, as it is almost foreign to the common conversation around buying things, making things, paying people for things. It jostles things up.

After I sat with it for a while, this quote really struck a chord with me. Not only for the economic and ethical possibility it speaks to – one of dignity, fellowship, and business acumen – and that is a remarkable and awesome way to run a business – but also on a grander scale. Because, why not play that way everywhere? To operate in our relationships, to operate on our planet, to operate in our societies, to operate with our actions, and to perform, all from a space and a promise of coming from our utmost, our all, our whole, the fullest expression of whom we create ourselves to be.

Not what I/we think we can get away with.