Some days ago, I was embroiled in an interesting conversation with a coworker about the stress and life-sucking that goes on because of work and life distractions. I was also noticing the volume of grey hair I’m developing above my ears. It might have been that which concerned me more than the other stuff, but regardless, it prompted a question, which I’ll get to in a moment.

In the last six months I have gone from having 3-5 grey hairs above my ears to over 20. Ok, maybe 30.

Six months! Granted, there have been some very stressful situations at work, but come on. I’m really not that old, and yet there they are…and they aren’t from age, they are 100% confirmed, from stress. I’ve had them tested. But that’s not the point. The point is, the thought that occurred was, could I sue for damages because my life has been sucked away from me not unlike the Pit of Despair scene in The Princess Bride? And if I could, how much is a year of life worth?

What is the value of one year of your life?

It’s got to be more than your annual salary, because that’s just an artificial valuation of your contributions (hopefully) based on measurements, statistics, averages, and other nonsensical stuff. Even if you determined an hourly rate of your life and multiplied it by the number of hours in a typical year (1 year = 8765.81277 hours) would that still really give you the true value of you living for a year?

How would you value the influence you have on others, or the changes you make that might cause something to happen a year from now that would never have happened had you not done the original thing? And realistically, COULD you even put a value on all the possible outcomes? Unlikely. So really what it comes down to is what would a jury of your peers award you for damages.

That’s where the numbers become fun. You can get billions of dollars from tobacco companies because you failed to heed the warnings about smoking (or the nasty smell that your friends constantly complained about). You can get millions upon millions in wrongful death lawsuits. So let’s say an entire life lost is worth, let’s find a recent one in the news, $25 million (that’s the supposed estimate for John Ritter).

If you average 85 years, that works out to about $294,117.65 a year. I think we know there are a heck of a lot of people who make more than that in their annual salary. Should those people be valued more than a famous actor who made us laugh and smile for so many years? Should those of us with significantly lower salaries or job glamour be devalued? Is there something like an adjustable rate mortgage on a year of your life than can wax and wane based on your annual accomplishments? If you influenced more people this year, are you worth more?

It’s completely philosophical I suppose, and I’m not really interested in finding THE answer…but I am interested in what YOU think the value of one year of your life is, and why.

This sarcastic entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 10:00 am and is filed under About Heath, Awareness, Death, Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.