For What It's Worth

Anything's value is what it's worth to you. There is no intrinsic value in anything. The financial value of a home, for example, which is usually discussed only  when the home is for sale, is the amount that someone is willing to pay for it.  The value is decided with the meeting of the minds of a willing buyer and a willing seller.  But the value of a home goes much, much deeper than its financial value, doesn't it? Our homes are where we live and move and have our being.   Maybe your home is on a farm and that farm was owned by your great grandparents, your grandparents, your parents and now by you.  I would think that the value of the farm to you is much higher than its financial value. And yet when you put it up for sale, it is only worth what someone is willing to pay you for it. None of the family history transfers to the closing documents.

I own a  2005 car that I bought in 2008. This car has had few problems and has served me well.  I think about trading it for something newer, but the book value is only a few hundred dollars.  The car is still in  perfect running order. In spite of its powerful 255hp six cylinder engine, it still gets about 30 mpg. The car is  worth quite a lot to me. So for now I'll keep the car. I'm just not willing to sell such a good car for a few hundred dollars.  I'm tempted by those 2015, 16 and 17 beauties, but my money is worth more to me than  a new car. And my '05 drives just fine.

"For what it's worth"  is most often used as a preface for an opinion.   The speaker says something like, "I don't know if what I'm about to say will have any value to you or not, so take it 'for what it's worth'. "   So there again, what the words are worth to the speaker and what they are worth to you are entirely different things. No matter what the words mean to the speaker, they may be worth little or nothing to you.

One of my favorite movies is the futuristic Pixar movie Wall-E. If I like a movie for no other reason, a good soundtrack is worth the price of admission. Thomas Newman's music does not disappoint. But I like WALL-E for many more reasons than that.  During the first part of the movie when WALL-E, a garbage collecting robot,  is still alone (except for his roach friend), he is scavenging the landscape for collectibles. At one point he sees a small ring display box in a pile of rubbish. He reaches down, picks it up, holds it up to the light, opens it and views the large sparkling diamond it contains. Considering his options, he discards the diamond on the ground and puts the box in his storage container to carry home to add to his collection.  What was the diamond worth to him? Nothing. The ring box?  Who knows.

One serious flaw of human nature is that we often assign value to things that should have no value. Someone says something to us that hurts our feelings and we carry that feeling for the remainder of the day, or the week, or the month,or the year, or the decade. Within minutes the person who said it never gave it another thought and we've carried it with us for years. We assigned value to it, meaning  to it, wrote stories around it and kept it alive in our nervous system.  The other flaw is that we assign value to the wrong things. Like the song The Cat's In the Cradle, your son wants to play catch and you choose to watch a football  game. Twenty years later you so wish your son and his family would come to visit, but the kids are sick and he's tied up at the office. "But we'll have a good time then, Dad, you know we'll have a good time then."

A thrill seeker may value the adrenaline rush more than his life. A heavy drinker may enjoy the effects of alcohol more than the physical and social toll its taking on  his life, his family and his health. This list could go on an on regarding the trade offs with what we value.

The value of some  things changes constantly and other things change very little over time.  Many times we think of a share of common stock as something with a "closing value."  Or a group of stocks, like the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as a number at the end of the day. That stock is traded all day long and its value changes thousands of times before the close.  Any average, such as the DJIA, changes constantly as well before the news reports its value at the closing bell. Then there are the intangibles such as the value of friendship that may stay constant for a lifetime.

My point is this you are the one  who gives something its value. Something is only worth what it's worth to you. Like WALL-E, you may enjoy the box more than the diamond.  We all have seen children on Christmas morning who play with the boxes and the wrapping much more than they play with the expensive toys

So the next time someone starts a sentence with "For what it's worth," think about WALL-E and consider thinking "Nothing, until you convince me otherwise.".  It's not okay to say it, but it is okay to think it. And if you're thinking, "Yeah, I don't have to value your words here either." You'd be right.