Everyone Is Expensive

What I produce is my way of thinking and living.

This sentence matters a lot to me, because it takes many things out of words like “content,” “product,” “efficiency,” and “traffic,” and places them back into a person’s life.

I write not only so that others can see it; I build tools not only to improve efficiency; I put together a workflow not only to monetize it. Of course these things can bring results, but first of all, they are the way I live. They are the outward expression of how I understand the world, how I arrange my time, how I choose where to place my attention, and how I face life.

So anything I do has meaning.

That meaning does not necessarily need to be proven. It does not need to achieve something specific, or bring some specific value to others, or be validated by the market, platforms, or other people’s judgments before it counts.

In this world, all of our actions have meaning. We do not even need to truly do anything. Simply being here, simply breathing, simply experiencing, simply feeling, simply waking up one day and making it through that day already is not empty in itself.

Many times, people get trapped by a set of very cheap standards: Have you produced anything? Have you achieved anything? Do you have influence? Have you helped others? Have you made money?

These questions are not entirely meaningless, but they cannot be used to measure the full weight of a person’s existence. Because once you look at yourself only through these standards, you get converted into a function, compressed into a tool. As if only the parts that can be exchanged, displayed, or turned into results are worth keeping.

But that is not what a person is.

Everyone is expensive.

Here, “expensive” does not mean market price, nor does it mean self-pricing. It refers to a person’s time, attention, feelings, memories, failures, shame, love, fear, and hope. All of these things that cannot be easily calculated carry their own weight.

A person is not precious because they are useful. They are not precious because they can create value. They are not precious because they can be seen, appreciated, or needed.

A person was never cheap to begin with.

So when I say, “What I produce is my way of thinking and living,” what I am really saying is this: I no longer want to shrink myself into a content machine, an efficiency tool, or a project waiting to be evaluated.

The things I do can be very small. Writing a paragraph, changing one line of code, organizing a folder, spending a little time with my child, reading a few pages, staring into space, slowly thinking something through. They may not immediately generate external value, but they are all part of the life I am building.

And life itself is not meant to deliver a performance report.

If running a one-person company, writing, technology, or freelancing ultimately only turns me into a harsher boss to myself, then there is not much point in it. What truly matters is not whether I can squeeze value out of every minute, but whether I can build a way of living that does not betray myself.

Output is only the surface.

What is truly being produced is how I live.