Values


 “It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.”- Roy E. Disney

Once a man unearthed in his field a marble statue of great beauty. And he took it to a collector who loved all beautiful things and offered it to him for sale, and the collector bought it for a large price. And they parted.

And as the man walked home with his money he thought, and he said to himself, “How much life this money means! How can anyone give all this for a dead carved stone buried and undreamed of in the earth for a thousand years?”

And now the collector was looking at his statue, and he was thinking, and he said to himself, “What beauty! What life! The dream of what a soul! – and fresh with the sweet sleep of a thousand years. How can anyone give all this for money, dead and dreamless?”

~The Forerunner: His Parables and Poems by Kahlil Gibran (1920)

The free dictionary offers a number of definitions for ‘value’- the worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor; utility or merit; a principle or standard that is considered important or desirable. According to Kahlil’s story, two people, one object, different value assigned.

Indeed we attach different values to different things in life and not even two siblings will value the same thing in the same way. This is one of the things that add colour to life and gives us different careers, different parenting styles, different vehicles on our roads, and even drives fashion. ‘To each his own’ is now a common phrase in everyday language. So, where do we meet if we all have different values? How then do we get to live in harmony if we all see differently, feel differently and do differently?

Tolerance and an openness to learn are great values to have when you keep engaging people with different values from your own. Social media was once a place where we could meet and group up with people who share our values. Indeed I do belong to travel, hiking, crocheting, cat lovers, soap makers, bible study groups and many more. Recently however, there is a culture of intolerance where those who do not share your values gang up and harass you for your values, beliefs or stand. What happened to walking away, minding your business, moving on swiftly, to each his own? Why is key-board-warriorship and cyber-bullying now a thing?

I value freedom and my need for freedom to think for myself, make my own decisions and stand by my beliefs demands that I also give those who cross my path the freedom to be so long as their freedom does not encroach on my own. Someone making a comment online does not change me and should never be allowed to deny me a minute of sleep.  Let’s learn to allow the village madmen to practice their madness in the market square while we enjoy our peace at home. Know your values and live by them on purpose. Don’t make them hobbies to be practiced when you have free time.

“If you don’t stick to your values when they’re being tested, they’re not values: they’re hobbies.”- Jon Stewart

 

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