On Worth and Value

“Wow,” he exclaimed, “that’s a snazzy watch. What’s it worth?”

I know what he means by worth; he wants to know how much I paid for it. “It was a gift from my students. I’ve no idea what they paid for it.”

“I’d guess about twenty-five hundred dollars,” he said seizing my wrist and bringing the watch up to his face for a closer look.

I’d be depressed if my watch happened to be lost or stolen. Not because of its dollar value, but because of the reminder that I have been a person whose presence among my fellow humans was noted and appreciated. Also, the face is large, clear, and easy for my tired eyes to read.

There are obviously more measures of worth than the amount of cash that’s exchanged.

Perhaps we could better visualize worth if we defined it as: “the amount and kind of assets (money, comfort, reputation, freedom, time, leisure, etc.) that must be given up in order to acquire what’s desired or needed.” lf vaccination were to be made mandatory in a time of pandemic, those to whom freedom to choose is deemed a valuable asset might balk at the needle; the price would be considered too high, the pressure to conform an imposition. To most people in Canada during COVID-19, the price was considered acceptable; the promise of some protection worth enough to forego freedom to choose.

The assessment of worth is very individualistic, often very personal. If you both need transportation and hunger for prestige, you might consider spending fifty-thousand dollars on a Lexus. If only transportation is wanted, a Kia at half the price might be your ticket.

Normally, we talk about values and not worth, but they’re basically the same thing. What you and I come to rate as very valuable, marginally valuable or of less value guides our thinking when making worth judgments. Do I rate community solidarity more or less valuable than individual freedom to choose? Is prestige of greater value to me than public service? Are my own needs and desires more important than those of my neighbour? Is a white picket fence and a four-bedroom bungalow in the suburbs more valuable than tithing and/or saving for my children’s education?

Living according to Sermon on the Mount values can be more than difficult in a consumption-based economy. The values portrayed around us in relentless advertising, the pressure to “keep up with the Joneses,” an education that is geared more toward individual, vocational success than toward sustainable community values can wear even the most idealistic of us down to where herd values become our values … practically.

The “nice watch” incident with which I opened was a fiction, a parable if you wish. I own a Citadel watch; I paid $29.95 for it back in about 1998 when Rosthern still had a jewelry store. 

When I left my last job as an adult education teacher in Westlock, Alberta, my students gave me an engraved letter opener and some of them came over to help us pack our belongings into a U-Haul truck. The “Number One Teacher” engraving remains as valuable to me, at least, as a Rolex watch.

I’m sure you know why.