Negotiate You For Lunch

We are philanthropic, humanistic, almost too much altruistic. We nod, shake hands, offer gratitude and bid our fellow citizens the warmest of well-wishes. All is well in urbania when nothing’s at stake, for words are free and we’ve got plenty. Smiles are even on sale while supplies last.

Yet when met with the prospect of transaction, the common man bristles, braces, grimaces, turns into a trace of his former self, a monetized bot ready to pounce on his prey. A veritable cha-ching waiting in the wings.

The rest of the time when out of the grimy clutches of capital gains, we uphold our integrity, look for the overall good, are concerned about otherman’s welfare. Ah, we bring elaborately decorated cookies to mark/mask the festive occasion, bestow cards, hand out compliments, give pats on the back, and tote an array of atta-boys, without a hint of counting the cost.

But lurking under that unassuming persona is another, more disinterested cause. With cold, hard cash on the line, we are no longer the same compassionate soul. We curiously transmogrify into a merchant who can ill afford to show any scintilla of mercy toward what has now become his and/or her inferior opponent. We must give no ground. We must take them for whatever we can, by whatever means necessary, for the greater good of the account de la banke. We must act the bear. We must squeeze out all that is available at our disposal, and wait till the last drop has paid dividends.

For if a bartering is to take place, the much too common man is compelled to make it his own personal triumph. When selling, it is beneficial for the benefactor to get everything it can, even ask a tad higher than comfortable in order to err on the side of swindle, and don’t come down any more than what would turn the sweetest profit for you.

Toy with them, tease them, use psychological warfare against them if necessary. Put on your best emotive suit to utilize those disingenuous aspects of comfort, reassurance, security which will be your allies. Use anything it takes to accomplish your aim of being victorious over your conquest. Morals go out the door whenever one’s treasure is at stake. It changes everything. The rules are now different, and it’s what you get out of it that matters, irrespective of how you got there.

Is it any wonder we put on the guise of magnanimity at gift-giving by removing the price tag? This should tell us something. We instinctively perceive that currency clutters up the social arena, which is kind of where we tend to live. As such, lending to acquaintances is only valuable if you both never expect and never want to see them again. You give a loaner to become one, yet such a strategy works only with enemies but fails with comrades.

Listen closely to the innocuous buzzwords: To achieve an illusory financial success, there must be one you have succeeded over. Money is therefore an achievement. And it denotes the embodiment of success. You have, after all, reached ultimate portfolio. Alas, it sadly tells you what you’ve become.

The brutal economic philosophy does not have to render a particular side in the battle powerless, but only the unsuspecting with a conscience. Indeed, you can parlay the strategy from either vantage point. As buyer, give no ground and provide no reward to the seller, who was once you. Grant no space to your nemesis. Talk them down, then down some more. Don’t be satisfied with anything reasonable to them. The goal, after all, is for you to win. And the bigger you win, all the better. Then later you can boast about how you mercilessly took someone and made a deal that puts others, or even yourself, to shame.

For every “I got a great deal,” there’s a countering inference to “I ripped them off good.” It’s no doubt win-win, because I got what I wanted, and they were tricked into thinking they got what they wanted after realizing, of course, that their wishes were too grandiose in the first place and I generously brought them back to a stark reality and put them in their rightful place. Hey, they didn’t have to agree to it. When you think about it, it’s actually rather incredible how I showed them. And I’d bet if we played Monopoly, I could whup them at that, too. This revenue exchange thing is quite the invigorating game.

The lack of morals from the story is to take no one else’s welfare into account, for as we go about conducting our greetings and salutations, we’re still in a man-eat-man world. The bottom line spells it all out, and defines the true nature of the beast. While everything else in our day merely speaks, it’s only money that so eloquently talks.