“Price Tag” Principal’s Connection October 22, 2007

How much are you worth? Sounds like an impertinent question, doesn’t it? Why ask it? Some years ago in London a shopkeeper was closing his store one late afternoon when an automobile, out of control, crashed through the window of his store. The man was pinned against the wall with a severely fractured leg. Later, he took court action against the driver of the car, suing for a million dollars because he would never be able to play golf again. This touched off a wide-spread public debate on the question: How much is a man worth?

It is intriguing. A scientist will tell you that a man is worth about $65.00 at today’s inflated prices, measuring only the chemical components of the human body. Another way is to take a man’s anticipated annual earnings and multiply by the years of his life’s expectancy. Still another method is to add up the total value of all of his earthly possessions. Or, as en educator might do, you can place a value on a man according to what he knows. But that’s tricky. There are a lot of people with notable mental capacity who are languishing behind the walls of our nations prisons.

Some will tell you that the way you calculate a man’s worth is to place value on what he creates. As, for example, the noted artist, Millet. He once bought a piece of canvas for 60 cents and used it to paint a scene he had observed from the house in which he lived. He called his portrayal of this bit of French countryside, The Angelus, and if you were to try and buy it today you would expect to pay half-a-million dollars, perhaps more.

Even that method has flaws. How do you know today what your creations will be worth tomorrow? There is really only want way to measure the worth of a man. That is by what he is, by the way he helps and serves his fellow men. This, when you come down to it, is all he really owns. All else he has on loan. All else he leaves behind.

What are you worth? The great actress, Sarah Bernhardt, once said it all in just nine words. Good to remember: “It is in spending oneself that one becomes rich!” I hope we are teaching our children that. Their worth will best be measured in how they serve others.

Dr. Falkner