What is Your Value?

Do you have intrinsic value? A value that comes from within one’s self and is inherently present and used in a natural way without any thought of receiving acclaim. Do you have to stop and think before providing assistance to a person who has a heart attack and falls on the sidewalk at your feet?

If so, you have what is known as extrinsic value, which isn’t naturally present but can be added to your repertoire of values. A person of intrinsic value reacts instinctively to do good for others without stopping to analyze the situation with primary emphasis being placed on selfishness in lieu of selflessness.

What a wonderful world it would be if more people had intrinsic value. The irony of this statement is that some people have intrinsic value but they don’t know it. Possibly, they don’t know it because they have never been presented a situation so severe as to expose to others their unselfish actions. Such people go through life performing unselfish acts so frequently that it just doesn’t occur to them that they are doing anything special, or something that is unselfish. They don’t keep a log of their unselfish acts. They don’t receive medals for each of their unselfish acts. At the end of each day they don’t remind themselves of how many unselfish acts they performed that day. It just comes natural to people who have intrinsic value to do the right thing time and again, to help those in need, to show a caring heart, and to ask nothing in return.

Do you have intrinsic value?