The three things that don't move

Mencius said: wealth and rank can't corrupt him, poverty and obscurity can't move him, power and force can't bend him. That's what we call a great man.

Three tests, and most people only worry about the first one.

Wealth and rank: you can be bought. Not always with money. Usually with a promotion, a room you're invited into, a byline, an invitation. The purchase price is often much lower than people imagine.

Poverty can draw you away. Mencius doesn't mean that poverty makes you bad. He means the scramble, the desperate flexibility, the way you start agreeing with whoever can help. That's a different corruption than selling out, and it's far more common.

Power can bend you. Being told to, by someone with consequences, until the no disappears from your vocabulary.

Mencius isn't describing a moral superhero. He's naming three specific pressure systems and saying a person worth following has a fixed point in each.

What I find useful is the specificity. You can check yourself on these. Where is your price. Which flattery speeds you up. Whose voice changes what you say out loud.

You don't have to be incorruptible. You have to know where the line is before someone else finds it for you.

MOJOWAY's client file has a section on the thing a person won't do. It's unsurprising how rarely it's ever been written down.