Anniversary Musings: Value for Value Received

Folks, I wracked my brains today to try to figure out something new to say about my beloved late husband Michael B. Caffrey.

Why?

Because today is my wedding anniversary, that’s why. Fifteen years ago today, Michael and I married. It was the right decision, and it was perhaps the most important one of my entire life.

I’ve told you many things about Michael, but I’m not sure I have discussed some very important things that Michael stood for. Therefore, I’m going to rectify that now, and hope that wherever Michael is in the cosmos, he’ll smile at the recollection.

Anyway, Michael was ethical, principled, fair-minded, and believed firmly in the phrase I put in the title: value for value received. He believed people should be rewarded for good work, whether they were a ditch digger or a countess; he believed that too many people forgot that we were all alike, deep down, and that no one person, no matter how highly born he or she might be, was above anyone else. Or should be.

Michael and I often talked about politics, and perhaps I should share a bit about that, too. He often lamented that politicians forgot about “value for value received,” and started getting above themselves. Started thinking they were better than everyone else, because they had powerful positions, and powerful friends, and could amass great wealth while in office.

As a non-materialist Zen Buddhist, Michael abhorred the belief that only the powerful, well-connected socialites were worthy. He believed very strongly that if we were to believe in individualism, we had to give the resources (including health care, education, and in some cases job training) so people who weren’t born wealthy could make their ways in the world, find their passions, and work on the pursuit of happiness as they saw fit.

See, the whole idea of value for value received permeates everything. If you believe in bettering yourself, you should want to find a way toward a better education, learn new skills, or at minimum read as much as you can, as widely as you can.

In other words, you have to invest in yourself. You can’t give yourself the value you deserve if you don’t.

Another thing Michael was very concerned about was what he considered a dearth of compassion. Too many people, he felt, were not willing to look outside of themselves — while politicians were perhaps the easiest to poke fun at (and definitely to criticize), he was far more worried about the average person.

Why?

Well, Michael felt too many people refused to use their heads except for hat-racks. And because they abrogated their responsibilities to think and reason for themselves, they perhaps forgot about “value for value received,” and plodded along in life rather than make any strides in learning, creativity, or in their chosen profession.

Granted, there are many people who run into difficulty while trying to make strides. (I am one of them.) Life is often unfair, which is why Michael believed in the social safety net.

Michael was compassionate, fair-minded, smart as a whip and believed that if life was to be worth living, we had to struggle with all our might, soul, and skill. Only by doing that could we attain “value for value received.”

While Michael hasn’t walked this Earth now for nearly thirteen years, I still think he was onto something.