Why should everything have an economic value?

The idea for this article came to me by reading a post recently. This is a topic I have been thinking about for a long time. When I was young forty-fifty years back there was not much of a concept of value. You just did things. When I planted a kiss on my aunt’s cheek, was I thinking any value or return on investment? It was just love. When you go biking on the lake levy with a close friend you just enjoy it. Not even enjoy but just did it. It was exhilarating. No one taught me to calculate health benefits. Even in college back in the mid-eighties, life was just fun. There was no thinking about career. Those of us who were good in academics loved the courses. We got good grades. Others were interested in drama, administration and philosophy, just to exaggerate. The point is we never calculated a return. There was no mention or thinking about what the salary would look like. For those of us interested in research there was no attraction of big houses or cars.
Once in the United States, everything was calculated. There has to be a return of investment on just about everything. Calculation leads to abuse if the return is not met. Doesn’t matter how young you are. Even after the onslaught of the work life was mitigated there is still a habit of looking at what is the value in it. For example, if you went to the gym regularly and spent 1000 bucks a month, what are the benefits? That kind of thinking seemed rather innocuous. Certain other areas of life seemed okay too for such thinking. For example, if you build a community park one can think of not only benefits of playing for kids or a walk for adults, but there is also a social value. Five or six years back I was researching organizations. I came across the idea of psychological safety and immediately understood it. From time to time, I read about psychological safety. I got connected to an expert on the subject. I wrote a comment saying psychological safety is good for its own sake and we need no calculation of returns. She got immediately annoyed. She instantly told me that a calculation of the financial benefits has indeed been done and that there are some links on the internet I could check out.
One of the things I am interested in these days is various kinds of economy. I understand it is very difficult to calculate the economic benefit of the cooperative and nature economies. I also feel uncomfortable. If your neighbor lady makes you a glass of porridge when you are sick is there any value to it? These days I can sense that my good friend and gym trainer is hungry in the morning. I pull him aside and take him for breakfast. It is just kindness or in his words love. How can you calculate a value to it? I think the calculation of value stems from a scarcity mindset. If there is abundance instead, we wouldn’t calculate. The sun shines its light on us. Does it calculate? There is no value for affection. There is no value for spirituality. #value #economy
We live in times where the old sheet-anchors of tradition, customs, religion, culture, family, workplace and community are not supporting us anymore. People both in India and abroad are living meaningless and pointless lives. Paradoxically these times also offer us several insights in the form of research and teachings such as that of the Enneagram. Psycho-spirituality and the personal growth the Enneagram supports get people to think, reflect, contemplate and meditate for the first time. Young men and women find some solace in these teachings away from the usual rut of workplace and community strife. Spending some time with this literature awakens the person’s intelligence and makes him and her more capable of facing the threats and complexities of modern life. In the above you will find a post shared by me on LinkedIn as reflections and commentaries on living. These are meant to encourage you to take up some form of spiritual teachings to uplift your life and grow as big as an oak tree from the small kernel that you are now.