I Do Not Know What It Is Worth

Somebody asks what it costs and the honest answer is that you do not know.

And that is not false modesty. It is true. Nobody ever told you. There is no list anywhere with your particular thing on it, done your particular way, in your particular town.

So you say something vague. Or you say whatever you think. Or you say you will have to get back to them and then you do not.

I want to take the uncertainty seriously for a minute, because most articles about this treat it as a confidence problem and for you it genuinely is not.

You are allowed to name a number you are not certain about, and uncertainty has never once been the same thing as having no idea at all.

Here is the distinction I would like to make.

Not knowing exactly is a permanent condition. Nobody knows exactly. The people who sound certain are not certain, they have simply been saying a number for long enough that it has stopped sounding like a guess to them.

Not having any idea is different, and it is not your situation. You know what your time is worth to you. You know what it would have to be for it to be worth doing. You know roughly what it would be absurd to ask.

That is three pieces of information, and three pieces of information is a starting number.

Man knoweth not the price thereof

There is a chapter in Job about wisdom that has a line in it which is almost exactly your sentence.

Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living. (Job 28:13, King James Version)

Man knoweth not the price thereof.

It is about wisdom rather than about work, and I am not going to pretend otherwise. But what it establishes is that not knowing the price of something is a condition scripture describes without embarrassment.

You are saying a sentence that appears in the book of Job without one word of correction attached to it, and not knowing the price of a thing has never once been treated there as a personal failing. Job 28:13 says man knoweth not the price thereof, and the Holy Spirit is the one who put that plainly into the middle of a poem about searching.

And look at what the whole chapter is doing. It is describing men who dig into rock and bring things up out of dark places to find out what is there.

It is not a chapter about people who gave up because they did not know. It is a chapter about digging.

You have been in the searching part and calling it the stuck part, and a person who does not know yet has never once been the same as a person who has stopped looking. The Holy Spirit is the one who keeps somebody moving while they do not know, and it is written in Job 28 that the not knowing sits inside a chapter full of work.

A first number is not a verdict

Now the practical part, and this is where the uncertainty stops being an obstacle.

A price is not a measurement. It is a proposal. It is the opening number, and it can be revised next month, and next year, and after the third job when you know more than you know now.

You have been treating it as though naming a number means declaring the true value of your labor for all time, and that if the number is wrong you will have committed some kind of error.

You are able to make a proposal rather than a pronouncement, and a first number has never once been a claim about what a thing is eternally worth. The written word puts the not knowing inside a chapter about digging, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps a person working while the answer is still coming.

And here is how the knowing actually arrives, since nobody tells anybody this.

It arrives through saying numbers. You say one, and somebody says yes immediately, and you learn something. You say one and somebody hesitates and then agrees, and you learn something better. You say one and three people in a row say no, and you learn something too.

None of that information is available before you start saying numbers. Which means the certainty you have been waiting for is on the other side of the thing you are waiting to be certain before doing.

You are waiting for something that only arrives after the speaking, and knowledge that comes from doing has never once been available to a person who has not begun. The Holy Spirit is the one who teaches inside the work, and Job 28:13 sits in a chapter about people going down into the earth to find out.

Write it down first

So the assignment, with one extra step in it for you specifically.

Say your price out loud to yourself three times, then say it to the next person who asks.

But before the three times, write a number down. On paper, where nobody will see it, with no commitment attached.

A written number is a different object from a number in your head. A number in your head can be revised mid sentence. A number on paper is already outside you and cannot argue back.

You are able to write one figure on a page this afternoon, and a number on paper has never once been harder to say out loud than a number that was only ever a thought. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in something as ordinary as a pencil and a kitchen table, and the written word does not shame anybody for not yet knowing.

And write the date next to it. Because in six months you will look at that page and know a great deal more than you know today, and the number will change, and that is the process working rather than the process failing.

You are able to treat a number as a thing that moves, and a figure written with a date beside it has never once been a promise about the rest of a life. The Holy Spirit is the one who is not in a hurry with somebody learning, and it is written in Job 28 that the searching is honorable work in itself.