You are important.
If you are reading this, you are likely a human being, and are born with the same potential as all of us, as every human being who ever lived. You’re not worthwhile because you could be famous or brilliant, you have value and worth in your existence that we seem to not think about much.
Our worth as human beings, is currently represented (at least in the U.S.) by the dollar. This of course is an absurd statement, as we desperately need trash collectors, who are paid significantly less than say, a neurosurgeon, which most of us need much less in order to maintain a standard of living that is comfortable (and not live in a world full of trash, which… nope, different topic).
Our time is not our own until we are 18 years of age. For 18 years, we do not have a right to our time alive. You are legally required to attend school, your parents make legal decisions for you, you CANNOT wake up and decide to do whatever you want that day. I’ve talked about education before, it’s super broken, in an alarming number of ways, that no one seems to want to talk about. Today, I’m talking about time, and our value as humans.
This is in response to the events of the past hour or so. I live in Vermont, I’m no stranger to bad weather, I know how to drive in snow and ice, and I accept the risks of the state I have chosen to live in. As it can from time to time, the weather turned south incredibly quickly. Gloomy overcast skies rapidly began to spew hail and freezing rain, in air that is above freezing, onto ground that is below freezing with winter frost heaves still beneath it. Anyone with any understanding of how heat, water, and ice work, know that this is a recipe for disaster.
In the past, I’ve asked about early dismissals, and the reasoning I was given was that they can’t let out the high-school because they’d have to let out every school and they can’t (won’t) bring elementary school students to their homes without parents there. Some parents might be there, kids might have older siblings to care for them, parents might have a regular babysitter, or it might just happen that the kids are brought to be home alone. For the school, I’m guessing, it’s better to relinquish responsibility and let the kids get picked up by their parents, so that if they crash in the bad weather it isn’t the schools fault.
My knee-jerk reaction is, “Why do any employers think it’s okay to endanger their employees lives?” I get that business owners are concerned about profits. Schools are supposed to have kids there so many days in a year. There are all these requirements and considerations, that only exist because some human said so, not because of a biological, neurological, or psychological imperative.
It is unsafe to drive right now. I don’t have to in order to survive bio-, neuro-, or psychologically. Even if I didn’t have food in the cupboards, I could chose not to drive to the store, the same way meerkats chose not to forage when there are predators flying overhead. Animals in the natural world can make choices pertaining to their safety at their discretion, and we, the great human beings cannot. Even in Vermont, with four-wheel-drive, with years of experience driving in ice, it’s not objectively safe to drive. Just as a seasoned meerkat may risk foraging closer to a snake den, their experience means they may be more successful, but doesn’t render the action safe. Someone who cares about you, will not ask you to drive in this weather. Clearly, employers do not care about you the way they should.
It’s weird that I’ve never heard any adults talking about this throughout high-school, or my life, that I can remember at least. You are worth so much more than any employer will ever give you credit for. Your life is irreplaceable. Why is it that we’ve all accepted that employers can keep us at work at their discretion? It’s our discretion that matters. Try telling Ford to make cars when all their employees won’t come in. It’s unions and strikes, and dramatic events that shift what should be commonplace topics. It shouldn’t take a revolution, strike, or other grand event or gesture for one human being to care about the life of another.
I’m confounded as to how the intelligent humans among us allowed this to happen. A society where we’d rather you work, than be alive. There are OSHA regulations about the minimum and maximum allowed temperature of a factory or warehouse for workers to be legally allowed to work inside. Why aren’t there regulations about making sure your employees have a safe commute to and from work? Why do we even need a regulation? Can’t people just treat other people like people? Apparently not.
The point of this all, is that you are worth more, a human life, is worth more than what a business produces or provides due to that person. One guy at one place on Wall Street might make the company $100 billion dollars, and that still isn’t worth it if he throws himself from the roof two months later. Money should not be how we determine our worth. Even if it’s not how you, dear reader, personally determine your worth, because it sure isn’t how I know what I’m worth either, the societal norm is already set, and needs to change.
If I ever employ anyone, I will not forget that they are a human being first. If you employ human beings, please remember they are people first, and consider changes to your operations that reflect this. Finally, if you are an employee, don’t undervalue yourself. You are worth more than your employer will ever give you credit for, more than any dollar amount, more than anyone will thank you for, and more than you think.
