Someone once asked me “What makes one person better than an other? Is it money? Power? Education or perhaps intelligence?” At first, it was quite difficult to put a measure of how one person can be considered better than another, and partly because it wasn’t clear as to who had the right to actually be the one measuring. However, the more I thought about it, the more I started breaking it down into different scenarios and got a better idea on why that was actually a very valid question and how I determined my own value.
Since I am a systematic person and consider myself a business man, it only made sense to look at it from those lenses first and so I decided to think of it as if I had to choose between two people, how would I value each and why I would do so.
I thought of it from the measure of money but felt it was quite unfair that a piece of paper should dictate what someone’s true worth is. I looked at it, however, through the lens of a company first which ultimately puts a measure of money on someone’s worth when they are hiring them and that is often based upon experience or education and those two factors allow a company to put a worth on someone and a person’s ability is usually what gets someone hired or not.
From a systematic point of view, if you take money out of it then someone’s worth is only based upon their understanding of the environment they live in and their ability to survive within it. Therefore their ability is a common factor of both perspectives. From this point of view the ability to survive is subjective on environment and therefore your value would diminish or increase based on your environment. You simply wouldn’t have the same value if you were in the jungle or a busy city and so the context of ability is subjective based on where you are and the skillset you acquire but then it leads to your adaptation as a new measure of value.
From those two elements, it can then easily be said that ability, skill-set, experience, education, and adaptation are all factors that dictate someone’s values but yet there is a significant piece missing from the two. One that is most of the time missed by employers, businesses, friends and/or relatives and that is what I believe dictates the true value of a person in any context.
That single one thing is your ability to control your emotions. I think those that can master control over their emotions can accomplish anything they set out to do and that makes them valuable beyond any measure of money, success, or ability. Those that know emotions make us weak, despite making us human, can push the boundaries of society and go places others have never imagine possible, stand up to enemies never hear of before, and more importantly help create the world they wish to live in rather than the one given to them, and that my friends is a person you might want to know.
