Can you put a price on all the relationships of your life?

Hi there guys, I think you're all probably so sick and tired about all this talk about the Corona virus. So before I do yet another post on Covid-19, I thought I'd share with you a weird dream that I had last night because it left me asking myself a rather interesting and difficult question. It was a dream very much inspired by Money Heist - the Spanish series that I adore. Firstly, I need to briefly describe the scene from season 1 episode 1 which inspired my dream: the professor is putting together the ultimate team to pull off the mother of all heists - he attempts to recruit a woman called Silene (who adopts the nickname 'Tokyo' in the show, she goes on to be the protagonists in the story) to join his team. As we meet her, she is a very desperate woman - she is on the run after a botched bank robbery and the police are closing in on her. She calls her mother out of desperation when she doesn't know what else to do and a trap has been set by the police at her mother's home, they will pounce on Silene and nab her the moment she approaches her mother's house. However, the professor saves her from that trap the police have laid and as a woman who has nothing to lose, she joins the professor's team to help him pull off that heist, along with a bunch of other brilliant but desperate people who also have nothing to lose by joining the professor's team. Thus that is the scene from the TV show and my dream was very similar.

So in my dream, I was walking home from the supermarket with my groceries when an expensive looking car with tinted windows pulls up next to me. For some reason, I didn't hesitate to get into the car, mostly because the man who was in the car called me by my name and I thought, oh he must know me from somewhere. So he makes me a proposal - he is going to rob a bank and this heist is on the scale of what I have seen in Money Heist. However, in order to avoid being caught, after I take part in this heist, I can never ever go back to my old life. I would never be able to go home again, never speak to any of my friends or family ever again. They would be left wondering what happened to me, "Alex went to the supermarket one day, he was seen on the CCTV of the supermarket leaving with salad, ice cream, oranges and guava juice but somehow he never made it home despite carrying ice cream that would probably be melting. He seemed to have somehow disappeared somewhere on the short walk between the supermarket and his home. He just seemed to vanish into thin air." If I accepted I would have to leave with this guy in the car right there and then, I probably would never see London again - I would take part in the heist and then simply be given a new identity and a chance to live out my life in another city or town far away where nobody knew me. It would be a chance for a brand new start and I would be given so much money I would never have to work again. I would simply have to spend all that money enjoying myself for the rest of my life. I would be able to travel the world non-stop, buy anything I want, dine in the very finest restaurants, enjoy the best luxuries money can buy - but the one condition was that I could never ever contact anyone who knew me. 

I said no, I don't even know you, why should I go with you now? How can I trust you? How do I know your plan will work? What if I get caught and end up in jail? The man then said this is the only way to put together a perfect team for the heist; he told me how he had studied everything I had put out there on social media from Linkedin to Instagram to Facebook to Twitter and have found that I had the right mix of skills especially to do with speaking several languages to play a very specific role in the heist. I was headhunted to be a part of the team and whilst I didn't know him, he certainly knew everything about me. He then started telling me some details of my life from my childhood, stuff from my secondary school and my army days that I had no idea how he could have found out - I found myself shouting at him. "How did you know about this? Who told you this? Whom did you speak to in Singapore? Only I know that happened, no one else could have possibly found out!" He then said, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to alarm you but I knew you would question why you should trust me and so I needed to do a bit of research, do my homework in order to prove to you that I did know every aspect of your life. We have to somehow win your trust in a very short space of time so I thought this was the best way." So I told him, if you have done your homework then you would know that I have a reasonably good life: I'm not as rich as you, that's for sure but I am financially comfortable. I am happily married, I have a nice home in London, I have enough money and I'm not some desperate fugitive on the run - I have too much to lose. Find someone else desperate enough to help you rob the bank, I'm not your guy. My life isn't perfect but I'm pretty content for now, so I can't help you. 

As I reached for the car door, the man said, "wait Alex, I have something to show you", he then handed me a tablet - it was showing a scan of a document. There were a bunch of numbers scribbled on it and he said, "that number, the one at the bottom, that's the one I want you to look at." It had more looked like a phone number given how many digits there were but then I thought, surely that's too many numbers for a phone number; the first three numbers were 836 and I was wondering if that was an area code in America (turns out, it is the area code for Florida). Then I recalled that a number of Asian countries have country codes that start with 81 to 85 but the man then said, "that's the amount we're going to take in the heist, in US dollars." I tried to look at the number again on the screen but for some reason by eyes failed to focus on the screen, it was a blur. I then asked the man, "how many people are going to share that money?" He replied, "several people, but that's still plenty enough for everyone. You'll have so much money you wouldn't know how to spend it all before you died even if you had the most expensive taste for anything you want in the world. Or maybe you are a generous soul, it's not up to me to tell you what to do with that money, you can give it away to some poor village in Africa where they are dying of malaria and build an orphanage there - you could probably build a hundred schools and a hundred hospitals across Africa and still have plenty to spare. Think of how many people you can help, how much good you can do with that kind of money. The only condition I have is that you remain anonymous and you cannot give the money to anyone you know - they must think that you disappeared into thin air on the way home from the supermarket." 

I said, "so, you're basically asking me what my life is worth - am I willing to give up being whom I am for that amount of money? In exchange for that money, I have to turn my back on everyone who has been a part of my life, all my friends and family, I can't even go home to say goodbye to my husband or pick up a change of clothes before I go with you?" The man replied, "that's right, you finally get it. We'll burn your mobile phone and wallet, nothing will every link you to your past. But in exchange, you'll get this." He then picked up the tablet, entered the number into his phone and said, "if I divide that amongst the lot of you, that's the amount of money you'll get. But I will need an answer now please. You have a minute to decide, if you say no, then just pick up your groceries and go home. You will never see me again though no doubt you will think about me every time you read about the world's biggest bank heist and regret that you made the wrong decision about being a part of this. You have the rest of your life to regret being a coward. And the next time you check your bank balance as you log into your online banking, just think about how rich you could have been." He then waved his mobile phone in my face, showing a big number - my eyes couldn't focus. I said please, I can't see clearly, can you show me you phone screen again please? He looked annoyed and lifted it up to my face, exhaled dramatically, then said, "Alex, I really don't think it is your eyes that's the problem, it is actually your brain. You see, most people have never seen that much money in their lives before, they can't mentally process the thought of having that much money. That's why the numbers just appear as a blur to them." I squinted as hard as I could but those figures on the phone screen were still out of focus. I thought, damn - there's something wrong with my eyes, why can't I read the numbers on the screen? 

At that point, I reached forward to try to grab the phone and that was when I woke up. I literally sat up in my bed as I was reaching for that phone in my dream. And no, I still couldn't remember what that number was on the phone screen, it must have been a huge number. But my question for you is this: how big does that number have to be for you to have said yes and gone with that man in the car? In Money Heist, he didn't even have to promise Silene much as she was a fugitive on the run from the police, but in my dream, I actually had little to lose. I was a middle aged man with a stable job and quite content with my life, so how much did he have to offer me for me to say yes? As I sat up in bed, I tried to remember the blurred image on that phone screen, how many digits were there? I couldn't recall - what price would I be willing to sell every single relationship I have built up in my life for? The moral dilemma for me in this dream was when the man tried to suggest that all that money wouldn't be just for me, but I could use it to do a lot of charity work and that if I said no just to go back to my old life, that could come across as a selfish decision. If the man had offered you a small amount of money, you would definitely say no. But at some stage, everyone would have their price and at some stage, that no would turn into a yes: but what is your price? Can we place a price on your life on a deal life this? Or would you say, "I don't like my life much anyway, gosh I had been so fucking depressed of late, I really need this - thank you for this opportunity. So let's get started, tell me what I have to do." Leave a comment below please and many thanks for reading.