Are you as good as gold

[Scotty Dog]

Gold is not valuable in itself. It is valuable because there is so little of it. If sand were found only in small quantities, people would treasure it in their safe-deposit boxes; they would buy sand certificates, on important occasions they would exchange a little sand, and they would have the expression "as good as sand." Things cannot give us status. We give status to things. When a person gets into their car, they are giving status to the car. The car is not giving them status. The car says, "I feel good, because a person is at the wheel."
What really gives value to anything is its usefulness in serving others. Our body draws its value from its usefulness in serving others, and our life draws its value not from money we make, or the prizes we win, or the power we wield over others, but from the service we give every day to add a little bit more to the happiness of our family and our community. Eknath Easwaran

Found this on the web & started to wonder what people believe give them value, not in the eye's of others but when we're sitting alone and evaluating our selves/lives. does your training play any part in your worth ????
do you get it from the way you act with others????
or do you take your worth from another source, your bank balance, how many people are under you in work, what belt you have?????

For me it's when I look at my son & realise that he needs me to help him grow up, when I make my friends laff ( WITH me NOT at me, honest it happens, no really it bloody does!!!!!), when one of my students tap's someone that used to be the "undefeatable" guy they started training with.

Where do you get it from ????

[YODA]

Gold? Me?

I'm a very rough brass that aspires to be gold LOL!

But at least I'm trying :D

My missus agrees - VERY trying LOL!

But seriously - I try to have a positive effect on the lives of those I come into contact with. A simple goal - simple but not easy.

[morphus]

I try to be polite & treat people with courtesy, & hope that will encourage them to be polite to someone else - even when someone isn't being polite in return.
This may be positively optomistic.;)

[WhiteWizard]

I always try to help others around me in any situation be it at uni or just them not having a great time personally i like to think i can make a difference to the people i know i like to think i'm the one who is there if they ever need something

[KickChick]

Your life’s worth, in the end, isn’t measured in hours, or dollars. It’s measured by the amount of love exchanged along the way.

[Jim]

I think your determining factors change with your age. As a child / youth / teenager / twenty-something, etc. your views of the world differ and so do your goals.

I'd like to have the latest equipment and fancy car, etc. but they really don't matter that much to me and never really have. Dollar value is material and there's always someone who will have more. I'm in a job where I can see a multi-millionare developer one minute and interact with what is important to them and have to change the next instant to empathise with a single mother with disabled children working 24/7 trying to make ends meet.

The way I determine my net worth is that I can end the day believing that I have made a difference in my community (for the positive) during that day. A little different when I was in my twenties I would be guessing...

[Scotty Dog]

Originally posted by Jim
I think your determining factors change with your age. As a child / youth / teenager / twenty-something, etc. your views of the world differ and so do your goals.



Good point Jim.

So what do you think changes your goal's and value system?????

is it just age, is it having seen more of life you realise that the things you own arn't as important to your soul/karma (for want of a better way to say it).

Do you take your worth to be acumlative
ie you've given to other people all your life, so you can take a break now & still be ahead on the karma stakes??

or

is it determined by your actions at the time of evaluation
ie, you've been a sh*t to everyone you've ever met, but just before you meet the Big guy upstairs, you save a puppy, so your a good guy??

[Scotty Dog]

Originally posted by YODA
!

But at least I'm trying :D

My missus agrees - VERY trying LOL!



Yet again, the missus is right :p

Originally posted by YODA
!
But seriously - I try to have a positive effect on the lives of those I come into contact with. A simple goal - simple but not easy.


too true :(

[Knight_Errant]

I'm not as good as gold, I'm a deeply wierd and twisted person. At least I admit it...
I get a buzz just out of doing things. The fact of me doing stuff right now is all that matters to me. I fully expect this to change as I get older and wiser.

[Greyghost]

if i can make one person smile a day...

its the little things that matter.

[YODA]

I fully expect this to change as I get older and wiser.

Here's hoping your right. Enjoy your youthful irreverence - for now :D

[teacher]

Knight -E you've made a lot of us laugh that is a precious thing. You're doing ok so far.

[Kinjiro Tsukasa]

We are, all of us, better than gold and worth more, even if our behavior doesn't always reflect it. Knight_errant, I'll bet you are more "good" than you think you are. And you have an absolutely delightful sense of humor.

[Bon]

Yessy, yes, makes sense.


I mean, demand & supply. so simple, yet so profound!

The higher the demand and the less the supply, the greater the price!

However, w hy is it that important thing like air, water, etc. that are deemed necesary to live and survive are given such little value as a commodity in the markets?!

[Bon]

oh, yeh...

as the price goes up, the more suppliers are willing to supply. no surpise hey! and while the lower the mpeicr is, the less ppl are prepared to pay! though, the law of siminshing returns kicks in at some point and ppl derive less and less satisfaction for every inot consumed.

[Knight_Errant]

Real value surely lies in utility? Gold can't heal a disease or build a house...

[Kinjiro Tsukasa]

Material objects may reap their value from utility, but some things (like people) have value just because they are.

[Knight_Errant]

fair 'nuff

[Mig]

Your worth to yourself comes only from how useful you can be in increasing your survival.
Worth to others comes from how useful you can be to them.
Pure and simple.
Look at how your actions affect your life.
Look at how they affect others lives.
Karate is of great value to me because it gives rules of life that are self evident and empiricle and provides a reference point in everyday situations.
I also grow as a person by pushing myself to new levels where the gain is not
clear and / or immediate but through sacrifice and a certain amount of trust a better understanding of myself and others is reached.

[YODA]

Your worth to yourself comes only from how useful you can be in increasing your survival..
So a personal with no survival skills has no self worth?

[Tireces]

Am as I good as a shiny rock? I would hope so! I think every human being can honestly make the claim of being "better than gold".

[Mig]

So a personal with no survival skills has no self worth?

A person with no survival skills would be dead surely? Most people have skills they use in life of one kind or another. The more you can do for yourself, the more worth you are to yourself.

[Hugh]

A person with no survival skills would be dead surely? Most people have skills they use in life of one kind or another. The more you can do for yourself, the more worth you are to yourself.

However, for most of us in rich, wealthy developed countries, survival skills are somewhat superfluous - we dont exaclty have to go out and kill our food - we go to the supermarket, we don't need to know how to start a fire becuse most of us have central heating, and so forth...

As for me, I like to think that all human life has intrinsic value and that a person should be measured by how he treats others.

[Scotty Dog]

The more you can do for yourself, the more worth you are to yourself.

does that mean that you measure the worth of your life in what you can do for yourself????

the part of the originally quote that spoke to me was

our life draws its value not from money we make, or the prizes we win, or the power we wield over others, but from the service we give every day to add a little bit more to the happiness of our family and our community