My mind is center stage for you today.... I was thinking while running (because that's where all my best thinking happens) about my job, the amount of money I make now, did make, and want to make eventually. This is spurred to my mind due a conversation I had with a man, whom I very much respect, about a 10 min conversation he had and then billed his client over 80$ for it. He is brilliant and has close to 20 years experience in his field and he is the guy who gets hired to review, correct, and either support or prove incorrect OTHER experts work. So, ya, he deserves to bill his clients 350$ an hour. His mind is like a computer, solving physics puzzles and math equations faster than my fingers can type them into a calculator. Yet... Here is how I make 80$. I spend an hour with a six year old little girl watching YouTube videos and talking about art, girls scouts, friends at school and the medicine she takes. Then I get to tell her parents, "she understands more about her prognosis than you think she does. And those questions she is asking that concern you... Yep- they mean she wants more information." Then the next 80$ I'll make is when I get to provide this little girl with a developmentally appropriate diagnosis education, and explain than by the time she reaches my age she'll probably be deciding what she wants said and done at her funeral. Oh but not to worry! Seeing as she knows when her expiration date is, and the rest of us don't, she probably won't waste any of her time partying in collage, or backpacking through Europe, or ..... Well shoot. Now I don't know what to think "wasting time" means!!! What experiences are really most important in life????? Here I am in my thirties and can I say I've lived a full life and it's okay if I die because I've experienced so much of what this planet offers????? My answer is NO. But do I feel like I've wasted any of the time given to me already???? No to that also. Hmmmmmmmm alright -this a little off subject; back to the topic at hand.
So to recap, I make 80$ in an hour spending time working out the fears and emotions of a fatally ill child. He makes 80$ in ten minuets of math and physics to determine if driver A is warranted millions of dollars from driver B who made a simple mistake (a mistake driver A probably made many times before but was just lucky enough not to hurt anyone). And why is there such a disparity? Because of what society places value on. Any item or serivce is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. We function somewhat like the Borg (I hope you've seen Star Trek) ; society's collective voice says "I'll give you 2 nickels for your pickle" and 10 cents is the price. So when you get down to the bottom line, society places a higher value on being right and making the person who is wrong pay for it, more so than emotional well-being. Really? So is that what is most important in life? Being right and making money off the people who wrong you? Here I am back off subject again, so here I'll stay.
Is this what I go back and tell this little girl? Spend every precious minute you have being right and making others wrong!?!?! Come on! Never would I say something so ridiculous, yet it seems society might? No, no it wouldn't! In HER case, there are other things more important in life. Like building lasting memories with her family and raising awareness of her genetic condition so that one day perhaps a cure will be discovered and little girls like her in the future won't have to die young.
But in our lives ('our' meaning those of us without a terminal condition) we can place value on chasing the elusive dollar, an elevated social staus, and hanging with the popular kids. HahahahhahHahahahahaha. That's funny. See, being human IS a terminal condition. And we all know that. Truthfully, we're no different than someone with cancer. Then why if we all know this, AND this 'we' I'm speaking about are all the same minds that work to create society- does society place such an incredible value on these things we would all agree aren't important for someone with a life-ending diagnosis?
The answer to that question is what I do not know.
Yet, it is what I feel is possible to discover! I can't see the answer no more than I can see the wind... But I can feel both of them as they brush past my face while my feet pound down the pavement.
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