What Makes You Valuable?

Here's a question to ponder today: "At what age does a person become less valuable?"

Your immediate response, like mine, may have been "What a silly question! Age doesn't determine our value!" I invite you to slow down, though, take this question out of the box and look at it for awhile.

It is, I believe, the defining question for our families. The answer to this question could very well become the basis for our value in future society. So, what's the answer?

To craft my own response, I decided to take an approach becoming popular in political circles. I changed the question to this, "When is a person not a contributing member of society?"

That question opens up a whole new line of discussion, doesn't it? For example, we can wonder if an unborn child, unable to work, pay taxes or vote, has any value to a society. We can puzzle over whether Grandma, trapped in a hospital bed with little recognition of her family, still contributes much to the greater good.

Mull those thoughts for yourself, but here's a peek into my own: the value of a person is not based on what he or she can do for me. That "other", that living being sharing space with me on the planet, has value whether or not I assign it.

To bring it down to everyday life, I simply asked myself, "Did that person's value end when she could no longer communicate? What about her history? Did a lifetime of love, support, or even rage, disappear when dementia took over?"

The lessons learned from living with other people, whether they warm our hearts or chill our souls, help shape who we become. Even if we believe their value is based on the perception of others, doesn't that mean they've contributed?

And that unborn child I mentioned...does her value rest on whether or not she'll complicate my life? Or is it possible she has significance equal to my own? Gets kind of sticky, doesn't it, when we begin to decide who counts and who doesn't?

I'll leave you to your ponderings. I hope you reach a conclusion that allows you to value the people in your families, friendship circles and even your enemies.

It is, after all, a lot easier to live our own lives when we aren't looking over our shoulders, wondering if we're being evaluated by someone else.