What is the Value of Life?

The everlasting question that comes up into discussion time and time again in our lifetime is “what is the value of life?” Is the value of someone’s life only determined in monetary value or emotional value? Overtime throughout the decades people try to find the proper and respectful value of one’s life and if that involves putting it into monetary value. Is it righteous to measure the value of someone’s life in monetary value or by one’s emotional creativity and connection? Lifehappens.org asserts that their Human Life Calculator “helps you assess the financial loss your family would incur if you were to die today.” I agree that it is good to get a rough estimate of how much you will be making in the future. However, your life, any human life should not value the true purpose of true purpose of their life based on a calculator. Money is just numbers, I personally hate that a piece of paper can differentiate poverty and wealth, rank classes, and social classes. People can offer so much more than just money and people sometimes forget about that. Money can buy you happiness to an extent, but I personally believe it shouldn’t. In Chris Jone’s “Roger Ebert: The Essential Man,” Jone describes Ebert as a movie critic who lost his jaw to a tragic battle with cancer losing his capability to speak, drink, or eat on his own. Now one may think that we the end of his life, his career but Ebert clearly demonstrated that he cherished his life and was not scared of death and instead embraced it to do better things for himself and his work. Robert Ebert was absolutely an optimist as you can see through his words. He avoided talking about the struggles he had to face when losing his jaw and instead focused on the brighter side of life. Even with his lost of speaking Jones claims, “In his dreams, his voice never left him,” (Paragraph 24) which shows the audience that even though Ebert has lost his ability to speak he never lost his perspective of life. There isn’t any way money can influence the self-worth of someone’s life. I have gone and continue to go through so much hardships and heartbreaks daily that no one would ever know. I want to give up every day, but I don’t. As much as I want to just close my eyes and say this is it, I never do. Even though these thoughts are eating me up inside, I continuously have to tell myself that I am enough, smart, beautiful, intelligent, independent, strong and caring. And that with God who strengthens me, I will overcome all obstacles life throws at me. I continue to live every day, I wake up every morning, and I strive to be the best version of myself in every opportunity for my little sisters so that they don’t have to experience struggle and instead enjoy their lives to its fullest potential. My sisters are truly my will to live, my motivation to do and be better, and they are the value of my entire life. The value of life is what you make of it, you are the only one responsible for establishing life’s truest value which is whatever that is important to you. No person’s life can be bought by any amount of money. It is important to know your life worth, take a deep look at yourself and cherish what you have made of yourself and your perspective on your life. The world can never put a price tag on your life because you are uniquely priceless.

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