expensive principles

The problem with principles and leading your own life and having integrity is that it's hard. In this context, hard is often synonymous with expensive.

One of the best examples of this is trying to be environmentally conscious. Going green is expensive and it goes for beyond the fact that the hybrid version of a car has a higher price than the conventional gasoline version. Everything you use and consume takes energy to produce and transport to a place where you can utilize it. What did you eat today? How was it grown? How much packaging was there for it? How did you prepare it? What are the alternatives?

The alternatives are few and as such, they suffer from the disadvantage of being more expensive. This is driven partly by the simple idea of economics of scale. It's also a matter of if the green(er) alternative was cheaper, then it would likely be a mainstream product already. And all last week, as you three regular readers know, I couldn't help but harp on the powerful effect that money has on the decisions people make.

If you don't act with some principle in mind, then whose principles are you tacitly supporting by patronizing their stores? Is it this one: Always Low Prices. Always. Above all else, that is the mantra and they do it well, perhaps distressingly well for many, but conveniently well for many more who enjoy the end result of that slogan.

Ask yourself, what is the price of your principles? And what is the cost?