The real issue is, how much goodwill do you invest in the work? And goodwill is not something that we can buy with money. It's very hard to buy goodwill with money.

If you ever go bar hopping, who do you want to take with you? You want a slightly uglier version of yourself. Similar ... but slightly uglier.

If you want to spend more money in restaurants, use credit cards more than cash. If you want to spend less, use cash more than credit cards. But in general, we can think about how to use the pain of paying and how much of it do we want. And I think we have like a range. Credit cards have very little pain of paying, debit cards have a little bit more because you feel like today, at least it is coming out of your checking account, and cash has much more.

The more cashless our society becomes, the more our moral compass slips.

Rainy day savings are incredibly important, because from time to time, bad things happen. And if you're not prepared for that, it's going to be really terrible.

To summarize, using money to motivate people can be a double-edged sword. For tasks that require cognitive ability, low to moderate performance-based incentives can help. But when the incentive level is very high, it can command too much attention and thereby distract the person’s mind with thoughts about the reward. This can create stress and ultimately reduce the level of performance.

What kind of people would be able to rationalize better than other people? Better storytellers, right? Creative people, right? Because if you're creative, you find more ways to cheat and still yourself a story about why this is okay.