What do we tag a person’s worth to?  Money or material things?  Career?  Position in said career?  Who his/her family is?  Education?  Personality?

We live in a society that likes to box people into a compartment that we can comprehend.

Who is your father?  There is a question we get asked in Jamaica all the time.  We start off by needing to pin you to someone whom we might know, especially someone who might be successful.

What do you do?  We need to know what your job is.  Is your job important in our view?  It helps if you own a successful business that we have heard of; it helps if you are CEO, partner or some other prestigious position in a well-known, successful company; it helps if you are someone whom other ‘important’ people have talked about with high regard; it helps if your position can give us some gain.

The latter leads to this:  How can you help me?  What can I get for free?  Knowing you and becoming friendly with you will help me gain something I need or want.  I will be your friend.

Don’t for a minute think that this is not the case.  The majority of people are like this, in some way.  Even the people who don’t mean to do it, they do it.  They might catch themselves and stop, but it’s part of human nature.  How can I better serve myself?  The good people in this world do catch themselves at some point in life – sometimes when they are very young, in which case they become selfless adults; others change later in life, when they realize it is better to be selfless and kind.  However, there are those who will always be like this.  These people might well be generous and kind, but to whom are they being generous and kind?  To the unknown person with the ‘average’ job?  No.  Probably not.

Please note that I in no way believe anyone’s job is average.  If you are honestly awarded a job and work honestly and hard in your job, bringing harm to no one, then your job is far from average.  Your job is important.  If you don’t have a job and you live a good life being honest, selfless and kind, you are important.

I’ve watched the way people behave – the way they behave towards one another, the way they ignore or shun those who can’t offer them something they need or want, the way they are outright rude as there is no gain for them if they practice a little politeness.  It’s disgusting and it’s shameful, but the grace is held by the person who knows their own kindness, their own intelligence, their own human decency and their own self-worth.