I’ve been musing on the idea of value or worth this week. It started with me browsing through an old stamp collection that I’d inherited from my grandfather. I started googling some of the stamps, curious to see if any have monetary value. Some of them looked really old to me but ended up having little value while some I thought nothing of might fetch a pretty high price.
I found it so strange how such a tiny piece of paper could have so much value or not. Same could be said for many things in life. A few weekends ago I saved two old chairs that someone was throwing away. I repainted them and now they happily stand in my room. I love them. They have so much ‘value’ to me. I looked at vintage chairs on EBay and found that you can sell them for much more than I expected.
I know you are asking yourself where is she going with this. Just bear with me another few sentences. So we ascribe value to things in a myriad of ways or someone else does it for us. Like the chairs I just saw in a Homes and Gardens magazine which looked like ordinary chairs to me but were fetching prices in the range of 3000k. Mind boggling.
In a more subjective way we also ascribe value to people. We look at their looks, abilities, achievements and lifestyle. And we place them (and ourselves) somewhere on the scale. WHY? Why do we find our value in these temporary things? None of them have eternal value. Every single one of us gets old, dies and leave it all behind.
Who am I to think that I have more value than the guy who collects our trash every week? I’ve seen how a city looks where the trash doesn’t get collected. It’s bad. You don’t want that. We really need trash collector guys. We need postmen. As far as value goes their contribution to my quality of life is more valuable than the high earning business man living down the road. Don’t get me wrong we need every type of person on the planet. I’m just saying that the way we assign value to people needs a revamp.
I’d love to think that the guy who collects our trash feels like he has a lot of value. That his life is making a huge impact on this earth. That is the truth, isn’t it? I’d like to think that we are capable as human beings to see each other as valuable simply because we are human and treat each other with simple respect.
The other stuff – looks, abilities, achievements and lifestyle cannot add one single atom of value to who you are.
Who you are within is where your true value lies.
And from within you engage with others around you and you either add or deduct value from their lives through your actions and words. Suddenly you have all the power because you have all the power of choice. And every day you get to start over and choose again.
So lets start together today and realise our own true value and the value of those around us. We are eternal beings and we have eternal value. Our lives can reflect this by our choice to value what has true value.
Every one of us.
Hei Creations 