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The real value of life cannot be measured only in terms of possessions, skills, abilities or achievements. To have a complete view of life’s value, the measure must include: our belief system, character, relationships, and how well we fare in other areas of life such as love, respect, marriage, parenting, friendship and our contribution to the society.

When we measure life’s value by physical and material possessions only, we miss a great deal of opportunity to see the life big picture and stand the risk of creating a sense of fulfillment that is superficial and temporal in nature. According to the Oxford dictionary, value is defined as beliefs about what is right or wrong. We are all products of different societies and cultures. There are basic values and beliefs in each society and culture that are good and acceptable for each one of us to demonstrate in order to strengthen our living together in peace and harmony. These values are fairly similar across board. Such values include: strong belief systems (faith), being good to our neighbors, obedient to the law, kindness, truthful, love, respect for self and others, etc.

It is quite amazing that many of us (at least a large proportion of people) believe that these values are good and of great benefits to us as individuals and society, but we still find ourselves dishonoring the values at will without even thinking about them. Sometimes, we get so used to violating the values that it soon becomes a norm. We then justify our actions by saying ‘everyone is doing it’. But you are not ‘everyone’. You are a unique and distinguished individual. MK Gandhi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world". To live a life of value, we must define the boundary within which we want to live our lives, and continuously work at staying within the boundary.

However, I have found that this is not so simple to achieve. There is strong passion in forms of ambition, desire, greed, indulgence, etc in everyone. When any or a combination of these get hold of us, we find ourselves going over the boundary.

’I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. So, why is it difficult to consistently honor our values? I found the following as some of the reasons why.

--Because we do not want to be accountable
--Because we do not want to take responsibility
--We prefer to be seen and perceived as being good without doing good
--Many want to enjoy the fruit of success without pain of labor
--Lack of personal commitment

The following steps would be helpful to overcome these difficulties ---
--Define a boundary within which you want to live your life
--Identify what values are important to you and write them down
--Examine each of the values by asking the following questions:
----Why are these values important to me?
----What price am I willing to pay to honor these values?
----Of what benefits are these values to me?

Carefully and sincerely answer these questions and write down your answers. On a regular basis, be it daily or weekly, take a few minutes to read out your values and evaluate your choices, actions and decisions against the values. You do this to see which of your values you are honoring or dishonoring by your choices, actions and decisions. For example, if one of your values is to be truthful at all times no matter what, and you find yourself in a situation to lie. Stop and ask yourself, does telling a lie align with my value? By so doing, you are brought into a conscious moment decision. When you make up your mind to honor your life values, it will challenge your character, and because you have decided to live accountably and responsibly, you cannot afford to ignore the defects; you must confront it.

To live a life of value, we must confront the defects in our lives. To be candid, every one of us has got character defects. It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. The good thing is, it is available to everyone who will ask for it.

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