The Client List and What People Do For Money
The moral case for doing whatever you have to for money.
Author’s Note: Given that this piece is about what people do for money, I’d love to do this newsletter writing for money. Please upgrade to a paid subscriber if you can.
People will do a lot of things for money.
It starts when you're a kid. You want a thing but your parents don't want to give you the thing. Either because they think it's bad for you or because they don't think it's worth the effort. You still want the thing though. So you make a deal with them as a way to get the thing you want. They ask you to do something you don't necessarily want you to do, like clean your room or mow the lawn, but if you do it, your parents will give you the thing you want. Even if they don't think you should have it, they are willing to exchange the thing for the effort you put in to doing work. As you get older, the exchange gets more complicated. You continue to want things and eventually it becomes something that your parents can't give you. Which means you have to be willing to do things for other people so that they will exchange it for your time and energy. This is what we call a job, though it doesn't necessarily have to be.
The most direct way to do this type of exchange is to do work in order to get money. After all, when you have money it's not really up to whoever you're doing things for what you want to spend it on. You get to choose what you do things for. What you're going to buy with the things they pay you for. It gives you so much freedom to be able to do this. So long as you have enough money in order to exchange it for what they are offering, it's perfectly reasonable to do it. People have created whole systems of ways to exchanging things for money and jobs you can do.
Where things get complicated is in what kind of jobs you might get. The more people are willing to do a thing the less money you can get for it. So it makes sense to look for jobs other people won't do or are less willing to do for money. Getting a job like that means you can charge more for it and ultimately have more money to exchange. One of the things people like to do but can never get enough of is something involving sex. It's something you can make a lot of money for because so few people are willing to do it but you also can't do it too much or people find it less valuable. The inherent danger of something like that is also a problem. Offering sex puts you in a more vulnerable position, which is part of what makes the people willing to do it so few and far between.
The Client List is very much about what people are willing to do for money. Riley Parks, as played fantastically by Jennifer Love Hewitt, is a woman with kids to feed and no husband to support her. Due to this, she's forced to get whatever job she can. She's willing to do whatever she has to in order to keep her children fed and clothed and to have all the things they need. Including working as a masseuse at a massage parlour which offers much more than just massages. Something she's not entirely happy about at first but her kids come first. They need what they need and she's not going to let her personal discomfort keep her from providing for those she loves.
It's a delicate balance but one so many of us need to deal with.
Do yourself a favour and explore what people are willing to do for money by checking out The Client List today.
The Client List movie is available on Netflix and the TV show is available on Roku.
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Good read Andrew!