I’ve discussed sacrifice, and how it is a transaction where one gives up a thing of value for another thing of value (hopefully the thing gained has greater value than the thing given up). And I’ve discussed struggle, and how it is the process that generates (or reveals) value. Now I will discuss how these two ideas work together, and why this is important to me.
Both struggle and sacrifice deal with the valuation of things. Those things can be tangible, such as the value of my car or my home; or they can be intangible, such as the relationship I have with a friend or acquaintance. I personally follow the line of thought the Existentialists followed with regard to intrinsic value; that is, I do not believe anything has intrinsic value, and that all value is assigned by some sort of agent. Furthermore, I believe that the value assigned by a particular agent is not necessarily the same as the value assigned by another, different agent, when both agents are talking about the same thing. Whether intrinsic value exists or not is a long, ongoing debate by many people in our world; this post is not intended to engage with that debate. It should be enough for my reader to understand my position, and therefore why struggle and sacrifice are so important to me.
If it is not clear by now, all of these ideas revolve around the idea of value. It may be helpful to briefly discuss what value is. Value, as I understand it, is a measure of the willingness one has to submit their personal time and effort into a thing. That is, the more personal time and effort one is willing to put into something, the more value that thing has to that person. For example, if I am willing to sit at this table and spend time and effort in writing this blog post, then I am expressing or revealing that I value this blog in some way. The more time and effort I put into this blog, the more valuable the blog is to me. If I decide I’m more interested in playing a video game or making lunch, then playing that video game or making lunch likely are more valuable to me. If I forego playing the video game in favor of writing this blog, then the blog is more valuable to me. In other words, those things I decide to invest my time and effort in are the things I consider most valuable to me. This now touches on the idea of freedom.
In some sense, I need to be free in order to decide what to spend my time and effort on. That freedom is how I can assign or reveal the value in things, at least from my view point. I must be free to decide which things I will spend my time on in order to assign or reveal value. If I am not free to decide what I will spend my time on, then it is no longer an expression of valuation. For example, when I am employed with a company, and I perform duties as part of my employment, those activities are not necessarily valuable to me. My deciding to fulfill my duties reveals the value of my employment with the company, but does not reveal the value in the activity itself. As those who have worked “bullshit jobs” may already recognize, there are times when I consider the work I’ve been asked to do to hold very little if any value at all. (Consider the situation where I am working an eight hour shift at a job, and I have been asked to clean the floor of a room. Upon completing the task the first time, if I have done so in less than the eight hours of my shift, my boss may ask me to clean it again. I may argue that the floor is already clean, but my boss may insist I still clean it a second time, as he wishes me to work for the entire eight hour period. This is often referred to as a “make work project.”)
The point being made here is that I need to be free to decide what I spend my time on, or where I place my effort, in order to reveal or assign value in a thing. However, it isn’t necessarily clear what the thing is that I am assigning value to. When I help a friend clean their apartment, is it the act of cleaning that I value, or is it the relationship with my friend that I value, or perhaps a combination of both things and of others. Valuation can become quite complicated very quickly. In all situations, I still need to be free to decide for myself in order to assign or reveal value.
Tying this all together, when I struggle, I am assigning or revealing value in a thing. To struggle, for me, is how I generate value in this world. Sacrifice is when I purposely struggle and then release that thing of value for something of greater value. For example, as an employee for a company, I may struggle to perform my duties, revealing the value I hold in my employment, and then sacrifice my hard work for a paycheck that I will then later sacrifice for food and other things. I struggle to create something of value, that I then sacrifice in order to gain things of greater value (to me) that I likely would not be able to struggle for myself.
An example of something I may not be able to struggle for myself directly is a house. While it is true I could spend my time and effort building a house, it is likely not something I will ever do myself. For one, my skills are generally not in the areas of construction. Also, in order to accomplish the many other things I need to accomplish, such as feeding myself, it may be inappropriate to spend so much time on my shelter. Instead, I choose to spend my time on fixing computers and helping people in other ways, generating income for myself. With time, I can accumulate enough wealth that I can sacrifice in exchange for a house that others have built, typically also involving some sort of financial institution whom I will have to beg for a loan from. A rather complicated transaction with many different parts, but clearly one where I am unable (or unwilling) to struggle myself directly for the house, instead struggling on other things and then sacrificing in order to accomplish my aim of a house.
There is much more I could say on this topic, but this is likely enough for my reader for now. Recognizing the transactional nature of my free choices in order to accomplish my projects is a big deal, as I see it. It is also why when I work a job for a company, I have learned not to get too caught up in the duties I am asked to perform. Within reason, of course. If I am asked to do tasks that I consider unethical, I may reveal the value of my ethics by declining such duties. However, if I am asked to clean the floor a second, and sometimes third time, even though I know that the floor is already clean, I can reveal how I value my employment and my relationship with my boss more than rubbing a wet mop across the floor.