Value is a remarkably fickle thing. It is not a fixed number, but a highly subjective mirage that stretches and shrinks like a rubber band depending on the observer’s mind and the surrounding circumstances.
Because of this, we are always confused. We often find ourselves at a complete loss for an objective way to prove whether the knowledge and experience in our hands is truly worthwhile, or if we are just intoxicated by a pebble that only we happen to like. Simply because the metrics are subjective, we succumb all too easily to selling our worth at a bargain price, or conversely, we act arrogantly by slapping an absurd price tag on ourselves.
In a world where everything is subjective, how can we calibrate the "Zero Point" of the value in our hands with the utmost accuracy?
The Litmus Paper of Another’s "Anxiety" and "Deficiency"
The first scale to measure your value is the eyes of others—or more accurately, the deficiencies of others.
To find out if what you possess is valuable, you don’t need to recklessly throw it into the market or ask people, "How much do you think this is worth?" Instead, you simply need to quietly observe what the people around you, or the organization you belong to, are currently anxious about and starved for.
Machiavelli was great not because he shouted about the nobility of his intellect, but because he accurately read the Medici family’s core deficiency—the deep anxiety of maintaining power—and thrust The Prince forward as a sophisticated puzzle piece to plug that exact hole.
No matter how subjective the world may be, if something you possess can soothe someone’s specific anxiety or fill their deficiency, it acquires an absolute "value" at that very moment. If you want to know whether what you hold is valuable, you must first prove which person’s deficiency it can connect to. Without that link, it remains—in the cold light of reality—nothing but a pebble.
The Internal "Density" That Endures the Weathering of Time
While there is an external scale found in the eyes of others, you must also maintain a much stricter scale within yourself: the scale of time.
The best way to avoid being fooled by subjective satisfaction or the endowment effect is to expose your knowledge and experience to the winds of time. Does a proposal or a conviction you once thought was magnificent still look solid and valid one month or one year later? Does it remain a backbone sustaining your life even after trends shift and your emotions cool down?
External praise and temporary rages evaporate quickly. However, if a piece of wisdom remains resting heavily in your palm even after time passes and the surrounding froth has completely cleared away—enabling you to grow and solving the problems of your life—then it is a genuine diamond. Before any external evaluation, value can be judged by its "internal density"—by how solidly it has been verified within the timeline of your own life.
Concluding the Essay
In the end, accurately judging the value held in your hand is a process of constant balancing between "the cold necessity of the outside world" and "the solid density within."
There is no need to throw a tantrum because the world fails to recognize your worth, nor is there any reason to be intimidated by the stingy price tag society slaps on you and surrender yourself whole.
Machiavelli packed his internal density by writing alone in his study, and he proved his external value by dissecting the reality confronting his ruler. The fact that value is profoundly subjective paradoxically means that depending on how you polish and prove it, it can just as easily become a weapon capable of shaking the world.
Therefore, feel the warmth resting upon your palm right now. And calmly ask yourself: Whose deficiency can this fill, and does this still make me uniquely myself across the passage of time? If you can answer these two questions, you already hold a true value far more accurate than any fickle yardstick the world will ever swing at you.
Leave a Reply