You probably wonder what living life like money relates to don't you? It is not about having a significant amount of money, and it isn't about having a great big bank account either so you can do whatever you want. 

Value Beyond Crumpled And Wrinkled

Instead, life is like money because, barring destroying it with fire, it always has value no matter how crumpled it is, used, or if it is stained with coffee or magic marker or crayons used by a child thinking it is something to draw on. 

Life is something like money in that you still have value no matter how many times you have been down trodden, or how often you have failed in your attempts to excel at a certain sport, or how many times you have failed to succeed in starting a successful business. 

Who You Are Matters More

The bright spot here is that your value does not come from what you have or what you own or how many estates you have around the world or any of these materialistic things. Your value is who you are not what you have. 

Value Behind Bars

I often saw this value in people who ended up behind bars when I worked in the correctional system as a classification officer, something like a social worker but not really. To me, it didn't matter what criminal activity brought you to prison but it was more about the value of the person within. 

For a lot of prisoners, even when they were released, they wore the stigma of being a convict for the rest of their life because they saw no value in themselves. 

Failure Does Not Diminish Value

Many people who have failed often devalue themselves thinking that their failure demonstrated that they should never think of having more than they have had in the past. 

Unfortunately, these types of people did not learn the most valuable lesson there is and that is failures are your best teacher. 

The point is to learn from mistakes, take out what was done right, and then incorporate that planning and thinking into the next business. I always recount the story of a friend of mine who started a small pre-cooked meal business hoping to move away from their current job that they loathed. 

When this business did not produce the results he wanted, he just plain and simple gave up trying or even thinking of another business he could start that would move him to where he wanted to be. Would you say that this person devalued their ability to succeed?

 

Seeing Beyond The Present

On the other hand, I have a friend who started out in a small way in the craft business and took their crafts to a local farmers' market. And, while the first year did not produce a huge profit barely covering costs, they kept at it learning from mistakes and moving forward with better products and more of them. 

This friend also wanted to move beyond working for someone else and learned that determination and the stick to it strategy paid off even though times were tough. In this case, this friend valued themselves and their ability and saw beyond their current situation even though success came only in very small increments. 

To date, this friend has left their minimum wage job and is a full-time crafter selling products across the province. 

Real Value Established Through Living To The Fullest

The value is in the person; the value is in the quest to move beyond that which comes easy; the value is who they are through hard times; the value is also who you become having surpassed ones own expectations. 

Do you want to be more like money?