Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Priceless Treasures
“What does not cost anything is not worth anything!” This
mantra, or something to that effect, exists in most languages. And at face
value, there is a lot to be said for it: valuable things are not free. But
think about it: encouraging words, random acts of kindness, a hug or a kiss-
what do they cost? Nothing. In fact, the most valuable things in life cost
nothing, because you can’t put a price tag on them. Yet our age is obsessed
with determining the price of everything, and in the process hit all kinds of
paradoxes: how much is a human life worth, so they can quantify insurance
premiums? How much is palliative care allowed to cost?
A few years back, a Swiss economist conducted an experiment:
he looked at people who regularly donated blood, and then randomly selected
some to whom he offered money for doing so. The result was that those rewarded
financially were less likely to give blood. This counter-intuitive reaction has
become known as the “Crowding Out” effect, when intrinsic motivation is crowed
out by the introduction of money. And even in daily life can we observe that
phenomenon: when everything is remunerated, be it the taking out of trash with
gold stars or the participating in the political process with tax favours, the
little idealism or volunteering instinct gets eroded by greed.
I happen to currently live in a country which, for all its
flaws, is very good at civic engagement. When I staying with my 78 year old
uncle in 2001 and 9/11 happened, he immediately picked up the phone and asked
the hospital whether they needed blood: I cannot imagine an Austrian coming up
with that reaction. Most museums, and there are many of them right in the
United States, are supported by donations: rich philanthropists, but also
middle-class Frank and Sally who have a standing order for $15/month because
“that is what we do”. Idealism, philanthropy, civic engagement- what beautiful
values, none of which can be quantified with money. Yet increasingly non-profit
organizations are also evaluated by the “philanthropic return on investment”,
by how much benefit the donors’ contributions yielded, and that is quantified
monetarily.
In other words we seem to be caught in the dilemma of most
things in life costing money, yet money being a poor measure for the value of things.
Nowhere is this more evident as when you evaluate somebody’s life achievement.
Some papers have begun to coin the phrase of somebody’s “net-worth”: Bill
Gates- 76 billion, Tom Monoghan 500 million, Opra- 2.9 billion. This is a scary
concept. The beggar down the street, or monks like myself who don’t own
personal property, would thus have a net worth of zero, or even a negative one.
Really? Surely we need a different standard to attribute worth.
Today marks the beginning of Lent in the West. This season,
like Ramadan for Muslims, is meant to be a season of preparation, purification
and prayer. Fasting, one of its aspects, is supposed to provide a “spiritual
detox”, getting rid of all the mental, emotional and spiritual waste we have
accumulated. Maybe this would be a good time to ponder priceless things in our
lives: time with friends, acts of kindness, prayer and recollection. Are we
investing enough in those treasures, or are we possessed by increasing our net
worth? Are we defining our life by how much we make or own, or by how much we contribute?
As Winston Churchill used to say: “We make a living by what we get, but we make
a life by what we give.”
# posted by tino @ Wednesday, March 05, 2014 
