Value

Money, time, property, treasures. Everything in this world has a value to us. A measure of how much one thing is worth to us compared to the others. Not all of those comparisons are ones that are socially acceptable to admit. “How much would you pay for the life of a stranger in a foreign country” for example. Others, are much closer to our hearts.

What we all understand, but few realize, is that the amount of money is irrelevant, particularly if your base necessities are met, especially in our world of credit cards. $200 for a ream of blank paper is silly. $200 for a college text book is over priced, but acceptable. $200 for a house is good fortune beyond reason.

But let us look beyond currency, and to what really matters to us; the relationships, romantic and not, that we have with other people.

We pay for relationships with our time, our love, our reactions and emotions. In every small deed and kindness, and all the rude jokes. With our energy, tears, laughter, and sleepless nights. Even for the relationships we do not want, the people we push away, we pay for it with our energy and anger, with our words and stern expressions. It is all worth something to us.

The question is, when is the price higher than the value?

When are you giving more to the person than they are worth to you, and when do you need them to remind you why you are putting as much in as you are. When is it time to loosen your hold, and find another place to spend your time, your smiles, your tears.

Sometimes, I think that place is when the other person can hear this, and decide you aren’t worth their effort, and aren’t worth convincing. When seeing you walk in is a feeling of burden, rather than a feeling of warmth.

Value is a difficult thing for us to judge. Particularly when society tells us that you cannot put a price on loved ones and friends, and that trying is wrong. But whatever we say, we are all measuring up worth of one thing, one person, to another.

And we all strive for the infinitely renewable sources in our lives. The ones that give back to us as much as they receive. That will pick us up as reliably as we will them when they need it. Whether you talk to them once a year or once a day, those friends are what I think many people need to feel whole, and warm. What we need to keep from being drained by our lives.