What is this dilemma?

Life is Full of Dilemmas

Sometimes I think, somehow life is full of dilemmas. You look at it and it makes perfect sense, you think, let's give it a try. Then for some reason you are in a dilemma, if you do this, it touches this, if you do that, it touches that.

You need to think things through, but sometimes no matter how much you think, you still end up in a dilemma at some stage. Whereas from the beginning you had weighed it up, you had thought about every step of what you were going to do, you had asked, you had investigated. You had made a proper plan. You don't understand why things went wrong. 

You start looking for a solution, but now the irreversible stage has come, there is nothing you can do, you are trying to decide how little damage you can do. Now that it is certain that there will be a loss, you are trying to figure out what you can do so that the loss is minimal.

It is at this stage that most of us get blinded, when it comes to this stage, no one else matters but ourselves. Even though we may have started with very good intentions at the beginning, whatever we do now will harm someone, and as long as that damage is not ours, as long as it does not touch us, no matter who gets hurt, this is the logic that comes and goes for most of us. 

Doing a job and making a profit is a natural way of life for everyone. The rule of life is actually to work and earn money. It's not like we are going to steal and steal, of course we all want to spend labor and get paid for it. 

Some may be after less labor and more profit, but I am one of those who think that it is enough to get the reward for the labor. In fact, I wish I could do no harm to anyone, I wish I could only labor myself and get what I pay for it, and I wish there was no work associated with other people. After all, if I hurt someone, I would feel remorse.

But there are usually limited things we can do on our own. Many things in life have to be done together or even if we do what we do on our own, we have to be in somehow in a relationship with other people for the return.

That's why, when the work we start goes wrong, somehow the damage is bound to touch someone. Even if we have good intentions so that no one is harmed, sometimes the resulting damage is more than we can afford on our own, so sometimes we have to reflect the damage to others.

Finding Ways to Make Money by Tricking People

Where did all these pessimistic thoughts come from now, you may ask? 

I read a scam news again. A company sold cleaning materials to forty thousand people to make bath balls and promised to buy back the bath balls they produced at three times the price. In the beginning, everything is normal, people buy cleaning materials from the factory, they produce bath balls at home, the company buys these products back at three times the price, and forty thousand people have a good additional income. The company's slogan is "buy the powder, knead it into bath balls, dry them and sell them back to us for three times the price". 

But at one stage, after selling all these cleaning materials to eager people, the company official first increases the payment period to three months and then does not make payments at all. 

The incident came to light when people complained that they had delivered their products to the factory and were not paid for them. 

I don't know how much the unpaid amount is, but it is not yet clear whether it is fraud or whether the owner of the company is also a victim due to the state of the country's economy. 

Maybe it's another Farm Bank story. Another case of a tosuncoon. Who knows? Again so many people claiming to have been defrauded, again so many victims. Moreover, it looks like an innocent business that depends on remote labor, at least at the beginning, everyone is happy with this business. 

But at some stage, everyone thinks that they have been defrauded because of the money they spent on cleaning materials. 

As a result of the complaints, the owner of the company was caught and arrested in an operation. One more person was arrested. 

But the owner of the company said in a statement that his intention was not fraud. He might be telling the truth, otherwise he would have run away. Although these things are unpredictable, maybe the operation was carried out just in time, the man could not escape, so he may be saying that. You don't know what to believe these days. There is no trust left in anyone.

Why do these things happen?

Here I was trying to analyze this incident with all my good intentions. 

Thoughts are going back and forth in my mind. On the one hand, I think, maybe it is an innocent business and people trying to earn money by laboring, maybe even a well-intentioned business person who offers people a job opportunity in these difficult economic conditions. On the other hand, thoughts say the opposite, maybe the factory owner is a vigilante whose aim is to defraud people, and there are a lot of people around him who think they are vigilantes trying to make one three. Which one is right? It's hard to decide.

Maybe he had really good intentions and things went wrong at some stage, the incompetence of the people running the country affected this businessman and his initial plan didn't work. However, if economic conditions had stabilized, perhaps everyone would have won. But it didn't happen. Somehow the products could not be sold. The loss went far beyond what this businessman could afford and he decided to share the loss. Isn't it possible? Isn't it the fault of those who govern the country? He even said, "Why am I making a loss in this situation?" and was caught while he was planning to collect the money and flee. This could also happen! 

I guess all these details will be revealed in court, but I am still thinking about people's eagerness to earn three to one. 

What would I do? Three to one, good profit. 

Well, I ask him, I ask her, they say the payments are being made. And the employer is a good man of prayer. Clean profit! 

What do you do? You pay some money, you buy cleaning materials, you work at home for a month, you make a bath ball, one of those balls that fizzes when you throw it in the bathtub. Kids loved them in the bath when they were little. Then you give the factory what you've produced and go and get triple the money from the cash register, and if you want, you buy a month's worth of new materials and triple your money again. Really good profit!

Is there a risk? Of course there is, what if you are left alone with what you get for your money? 

What if one day you see a chain on the door of the factory where you will take what you have worked so hard to produce? 

But at the end of the day, isn't it a cleaning product? I use it myself. 

But I would always check whether the money I paid was the full value of the materials I bought. 

If they charge an exorbitant price for the materials, I would probably suspect something. 

Still, in the end there is a three-to-one profit, maybe I would risk some money, but I wouldn't invest everything I had if I saw such a risk. A little can be risked.

If everyone followed my logic, why would they complain? Make a bath ball, get three times the money, good job!

The story of Osman the Pheasant applies here too

But no, people probably saw it as an opportunity. Why would they pass up the chance to triple what they have, when they have the chance to triple what they have? Many of them may have even sold something important and got into this business. 

Here's the classic story of Pheasant Osman. The psychology of a vigilant citizen who thinks he has bought the Galata Bridge for a bargain. What did Pheasant Osman say in court? The one who bought the bridge thought he had cheated me, Mr. Judge! 

Well, do you at least have a contract? I don't have one! If you did, it would cost money, you wouldn't be able to triple the amount! If you did, at least you'd have to pay income tax to the state. In other words, you have assumed the risk from the beginning, you are knowingly committing a crime, you are committing a joint crime with the factory owner, you are actually an accomplice. But three to one, good profit! Isn't it worth committing a crime?

But what if you have a contract, you will be left with a piece of paper in your hand if someone organizes this business to defraud you. The guy will run away with the money, isn't it obvious? Three to one, is there such a profit in a normal business? But three to one is a good profit! 

My father worked as a coppersmith by the stove all his life, tinning copper plates, bowls and pots. At the end of his life, all he could do was farm, garden, and sell the bracelets on my mother's arm so that they could build one more floor on the one-story roof they bought in our town, a town in a remote place. The roof they could buy was not in the city. If he could earn three to one, who knows what he would have done. But there was a time when people earned a decent wage, when the sweat of one's brow was worth something and that was enough for everyone. Being human was enough, being respected was enough. Everyone was getting by somehow.

Now people have changed a lot, everyone is running after opportunities, everyone is trying to make one three. No one knows what is reasonable. 

It's like society has broken down. It seems to me that people are always thinking about what I can do to fool this and that. 

My mother used to say that we are doomed, I don't know, no matter how much I try to analyze this with good intentions, I think we are doomed. God knows if this society will ever recover.

Love and regards to everyone from Moscow