Price is Only an Issue
in the Absence of Value
“Dogwood Ascending” Aiken, SC, March 2023
Hello Friend,
What are those things or ideas that you value and will pay extra for? Or that you will go out of your way to acquire? What are those things or ideas that are part of you that are priceless, and when given away, increase in value? And lastly, what are those things or ideas that are part of you, and once given away become worthless?
I have been a pricing analyst for a large manufacturer since 2012. Not too long after I started, someone ran across the idea that is the headline of this blog. We all thought it a fitting ideal for those of us in the pricing group, that we then added it to our signatures of all our emails. Most people either didn’t notice it or understood what we were trying to say with this. A few of our salespeople were a little offended by this, and thought we were calling them out. The interesting thing was, the more they argued that there were just some customers who will always just buy on price, the more they actually helped prove this point. That if a customer, or anyone, didn’t value something, they would just buy what was cheapest and easiest to get.
Value can have a few different meanings. There can be the perceived value of a good or service. How much are you willing to pay for it? This is basically what I do all day. Some of the products we make, I help to decide how much we will charge for them. Then our customers have to decide if they will pay that price or not. If they see value in what we make and our service, they my pay a little more than our competition. If they see us a basically equal – that we offer no extra value – than they will not pay extra. This is beginning econ 101, and the first level of the reading of our headline.
“Caught in Flight” Aiken, SC, December 2025
Then there are those things that are part of who we are. What are the values that are at our core, that make up each of us and what we stand for? No two people’s core values are the same. When we are feeling more content in our lives, we are more likely living closer to our core values and spending time with the people who hold many of those same values. When we see our lives as out of control or we are frustrated or angry at ourselves or the world, it is likely we are seeing things in our lives that are not aligned with our values. Maybe we see we are not the person we would like to be or we are around people that are not supportive of our values or have values that are counter to our own.
I recently read James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits”, and he talks a lot about values and how they shape what’s important to us and how we live our lives. On his website, he has a list of almost 60 “Core Values”. These aren’t the only ones out there, but it’s a pretty good place to start. It’s interesting list to look over and see what ones resonate with you. He suggests “to select less than five core values to focus on—if everything is a core value, then nothing is really a priority.” My first run through the list, I marked what I thought were important to me, and there were about 20. There are a number that are similar, like curiosity, learning, growth, that I’ll need to think closely about to decide if one seems more like me then another. And picking a top 5 doesn’t mean the others don’t matter, it’s more about the ones that seem the most important to you at this moment. The ones you see as already a strong part of you, or the ones you would like to work on and cultivate more. Clear then goes a few steps farther, by writing is annual “Integrity Report” around his birthday.
“Backlit Bald Cypress” Aiken, SC, November 2025
I think identifying the values is a good first step. Though, more importantly and telling, is what we spend our time and attention on. If we spend our time in conflict with the world and people around us, maybe we need to find activities and people that seemed to imbody some of the same values we do.
This reminds me of a time when my wife and I were much more social and would go out with friends and spend evenings at the homes of people we knew. Mostly they were parents of our daughter’s friends. We usually really enjoyed those evenings. There was one time, as the evening wore on, that a few of the couples started acting pretty ugly. They started saying mean and hurtful things about their partners, others at the gathering, people they didn’t even know, and the world in general. They were trying to pass it off as humor, but it made many of us uncomfortable. I remember getting in the car to go home, my wife and I looking at each other, and both agreeing there were a few people that it might be a good idea to spend less time around. We make the effort to spend time with those couples that are warm, caring and supportive of each other. I think that is one of the reasons we were recently able to celebrate our 33rd anniversary.
Though, are there times when values are in conflict? What to do then? I have been thinking about the time around 2010 when my wife and I decided to be more plant-based. There is a strong movement in that community to not even eat at the same table as people consuming meat. I can understand this. As someone who was going through a pretty large lifestyle change, I was thinking more about the people we spent time with. And, as the prior story shows, we did think it might be valuable to spend more time with like-minded people, and less with those that did not support what is important to us. Though, we also value the strong connections we have with our families. (We actually like the people we are related to.) We had heard stories of people that cut off all connections with their families over this. So, what to do for us at family gatherings? What path did we want to take over this.
One of the decisions we made was to either bring our own food or cook what we wanted when we got there. We were not going to stop others from eating what they wanted, but we were not going to change what we thought was best for us either. I think this plan has been working well, since we all still enjoy getting together a lot. And instead of cutting off ties with our families, we have, on a number of occasions, had some very engaging conversations about food, our lifestyle, our values, and why we do what we do. Do we stray and eat things we would rather not because of convenience? Yes. Though, have we had a positive effect on the people around us by being willing to demonstrate our values in a non-combative way? Also, yes.
“Charlie’s Paintbrushes by Window Light ” Hillsborough, NC, November 2025
After finding my current position with a more stable company, it freed us up to pursue other avenues. My wife was able to go back to college and I started exploring photography again. Since we were a one-income family during the last four years of my wife’s schooling, the priorities were doing inexpensive things to spend time together when we could, such as camping at local parks and car trips to see family.
In the middle of this time, I was able to upgrade my camera gear a little. Though, camera gear has always been just a tool for me, not a status symbol. I buy only what I think I can use well, and keep it for years. No reason to upgrade just to upgrade in the hopes I would impress other people. I like to learn with the tools at hand, and learn them well. When I start noticing I’m hitting creative walls that my tools can’t manage, then I’ll consider something new. And it usually takes me a while before that even happens.
Same thing for where I live. We’ve lived in our home in Aiken for more than 20 years. As the light is changing a bit in our lives, we could move to a new place, or fix up this one a bit. Since my wife and I are pretty settled in our little home, we’ll fix this one. Again, upgrading to upgrade just isn’t that interesting to us.
There are a few other factors that I think have also helped me better look at the world around me in the available light, and not the false light of illusion. Money issues for sure has force me to look closer at what’s important. As things lighten up, our plan is to not focus on adding more stuff in our lives, but to be able to stay healthy and enjoy doing things together. Part of this shift is getting older and noticing buying stuff never made me happy, doing things does.
“Glowing from Within ” Chicago Botanic Garden , August 2025
In the creative space, values can get very tricky. We value our independence to make what we feel is important to us at that moment in the best way we can. Though, we also want people to like us and value our work. I know I enjoy getting my photos into galleries and in publications and selling my work. I photograph a wide variety of subjects in a wide variety of ways. I don’t think how I get my work out there effects how I create the original photos – well I don’t think it does. But, when it comes to deciding which images go where, and what I want to show the world, yeah, I try to think about the different audiences and what they might or might not accept, enjoy, like and buy. I don’t believe it’s a conflict of values for me. And it’s defiantly a conversation we each have to have with ourselves throughout our creative journey.
I recently ran across this quote from Albert Einstein. (He might have used the word “man”, but in my head, I change it to “person.”) “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” Each of us will chose for ourselves the values that are most valuable to us. No one can tell us what we must value, just as we can’t tell others. Though, we do demonstrate our values all the time, to ourselves and to others, by the company we keep, the words we use, the actions we take and creations we make.
My final questions for this week are: What do you value that you are willing to pay a little – or a lot – more for? And, more importantly, what costs are you willing to pay to hold on to and create the values that are most important to you?
Thank you and keep creating what you do.
Patrick Krohn
May 2026