The members of the Guild of Assassins considered themselves cultured men who enjoyed good music and food and literature. And they knew the value of human life. To a penny, in many cases.
«Hogfather» by Terry Pratchett
What is your life worth? By the hour, I mean?
It’s pretty easy to calculate — just take your salary and divide it in a way that shows you your currency unit per hour. Either life hours or work hours.
Let’s say you’d earn 3145.11 Euro per month, and divide it by the hours per month (roughly 30.5 days per month * 24 hours a day = 732 hours in total on average), and end up with 4 euro and 30 cents per hour. That is what that life is worth by the hour.
Or, if you use working hours (at least those that are specified in the contract — the actual numbers might … vary): 18 euro and 65 cents. That’s what you sell yourself for.
Or, to look in the future, let’s take the average age when people go into retirement (67 years) and subtract it from the current age, and multiply it by 12 months and by the monthly earnings. You’d end up with 905.791 euro and 68 cents which you could earn. On average. Yes, you might get a raise, but you also might get fired. And there’s also inflation, which is usually quite the bitch.
And these are calculation of the net earnings (health insurance already subtracted) — the money has to cover rent and other costs of living and the like.
Well, money is truthful, it shows you what your life is actually worth.
It also allows you to calculate how long it would take your to … let’s say pay for something you’d really like. Or what a meeting is worth (use the working hours). There’s lots of potential for apps here.
And it shows you whether what you are doing is really worth it.
(And yeah, it does not count the other things that give your life value. But if these are not present … is it really worth it?)
