What Are You Worth ?
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If you are like most people, when asked, "What are you worth?", your answer is expressed as an amount of money. Even if you estimate your worth as the total of all the things you own, you still calculate that total by what those things cost, or what you think you could sell them for, right ?
In other words, the amount of money you would get, or that you gave, for those things. You might even have subtracted an amount you owe to someone to arrive at your "total worth." Bet you did. You are honest, I know.
Okay, so next I will ask what may seem at first a silly question:
"How much is your money worth?"
My questions go to the heart of how we think about people, about our country (any country), about our economy - about how we think of ourselves.
What if I said that were you to gather up all the money in the world - all of it yours, in your hands, right now - you would be worth nothing.
Think about it. What *would* you be worth ?
Most of the money we use today is paper money, and all that paper has value - sure - which is to say a dollar bill, or a Canadian hundred dollar bill, or a thousand pound sterling note, all have the same value, the same as any other piece of paper of similar size. They could be used to write a note to your lover, or perhaps some more utilitarian or immediate use - maybe find a bit of warmth on a cold night by burning them.
To explain what I mean about the "value" of money, it might be easier for you to imagine yourself and your family as the last people alive on planet earth, and in your family's possession is all the money in the world.
What would you purchase with all that money ?
Who would you purchase it from ?
Well, on the positive side, you would possess something of value - your family would never have any trouble starting a fire, never run out of toilet paper, and you would have an endless supply of love notes !
There are two fallacies at work when you calculate your *worth* as an amount of money. Oh, I realize it makes communication with others easier to talk about it that way. Nevertheless, money, in and of itself, has no value - the value of money exists in what is *done* with it, what it is exchanged for, the benefits received by both parties in transacting an exchange, and the satisfaction gained in receiving those benefits.
The second, and in my opinion larger, mistake in assuming your worth to be a sum of money, is that in following such "logic," if all money were to disappear, be outlawed, destroyed, then you would be worth the sum of all that money, which would be zero - nothing.
Now that makes absolutely no sense at all to me.
So from this day and for the rest of your life, I hope you will hold on to the images I have given you here, share them with other, and remember that no matter how much money you do not have, you are always worth more. You may be valued as a parent by a child, you may be a child who is adored by a grandparent. You are the light of someone's life and your smile delights others.
Maybe you entertain people, give them something to talk about or help them laugh, or maybe you simply listen as a trusted companion. You might be an able leader, or instead you are skilled at following instructions and making things happen. Your strength may be in learning, so that you may teach others. Whoever you are, you have a purpose and a place, even if you are still searching for it, and above all, you have great value just as you are - a great value that not all the money in the world could buy.
.
If you are like most people, when asked, "What are you worth?", your answer is expressed as an amount of money. Even if you estimate your worth as the total of all the things you own, you still calculate that total by what those things cost, or what you think you could sell them for, right ?
In other words, the amount of money you would get, or that you gave, for those things. You might even have subtracted an amount you owe to someone to arrive at your "total worth." Bet you did. You are honest, I know.
Okay, so next I will ask what may seem at first a silly question:
"How much is your money worth?"
My questions go to the heart of how we think about people, about our country (any country), about our economy - about how we think of ourselves.
What if I said that were you to gather up all the money in the world - all of it yours, in your hands, right now - you would be worth nothing.
Think about it. What *would* you be worth ?
Most of the money we use today is paper money, and all that paper has value - sure - which is to say a dollar bill, or a Canadian hundred dollar bill, or a thousand pound sterling note, all have the same value, the same as any other piece of paper of similar size. They could be used to write a note to your lover, or perhaps some more utilitarian or immediate use - maybe find a bit of warmth on a cold night by burning them.
To explain what I mean about the "value" of money, it might be easier for you to imagine yourself and your family as the last people alive on planet earth, and in your family's possession is all the money in the world.
What would you purchase with all that money ?
Who would you purchase it from ?
Well, on the positive side, you would possess something of value - your family would never have any trouble starting a fire, never run out of toilet paper, and you would have an endless supply of love notes !
There are two fallacies at work when you calculate your *worth* as an amount of money. Oh, I realize it makes communication with others easier to talk about it that way. Nevertheless, money, in and of itself, has no value - the value of money exists in what is *done* with it, what it is exchanged for, the benefits received by both parties in transacting an exchange, and the satisfaction gained in receiving those benefits.
The second, and in my opinion larger, mistake in assuming your worth to be a sum of money, is that in following such "logic," if all money were to disappear, be outlawed, destroyed, then you would be worth the sum of all that money, which would be zero - nothing.
Now that makes absolutely no sense at all to me.
So from this day and for the rest of your life, I hope you will hold on to the images I have given you here, share them with other, and remember that no matter how much money you do not have, you are always worth more. You may be valued as a parent by a child, you may be a child who is adored by a grandparent. You are the light of someone's life and your smile delights others.
Maybe you entertain people, give them something to talk about or help them laugh, or maybe you simply listen as a trusted companion. You might be an able leader, or instead you are skilled at following instructions and making things happen. Your strength may be in learning, so that you may teach others. Whoever you are, you have a purpose and a place, even if you are still searching for it, and above all, you have great value just as you are - a great value that not all the money in the world could buy.
.
posted by JamesB at 6:48 PM
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