Priceless and "I'll Pay Anything"
Short-Term Value and Long-Term Worth
A few weeks ago you read about the difference between value and worth. Worth being the summation of value. Something has worth to you if the long-term results outweigh the short-term current price/value. Buying a home may be worth it because you're pretty sure the value will increase over time, you'll receive tax benefits, and won't have to worry about rising rent or moving. The accumulation of these various "now" benefits make the long-term investment in the home have worth to you. Hence, you'll decide "it's worth it to buy this $300,000.00 home now [the short-term value] because in five years I think it will be worth $350,000 and I will have saved about $12,000 in taxes [long-term worth]."
An Unbounded Wish/Desire
What about those things that are not as concrete? Maybe you truly desire a 70" high def curved TV. It's priced at $6,000. You really covet this TV. So much that you feel like having it will bring instant happiness to you. You see the TV in your living room, you're watching your favorite movies, you feel like everything will be perfect once you have that TV. You also know if you bought it it would wipe out your savings account and take your next paycheck, this could cause you to be late on your bills or even your next mortgage or rent payment. So you decide you'll buy the TV on credit and pay a 14.99% annual interest rate. For some reason, those negatives don't outweigh your wish to have the TV. What's happening is your willingness to forgo your future needs for the short-term joy and euphoria of owning the TV is causing you to think the TV has "worth" (perceived long-term happiness for short-term money loss) and therefore the current value/price of $6,000 is not going to stop you from something that feels priceless to you (your feeling that the TV will bring you happiness). In this example, your desire for the TV is unbounded.
Setting Bounds To Your Wish
What's priceless to you? Maybe it's your family, your daily hikes in the mountains, sitting by a fire reading, or spending a day at the ocean. It's somthing that brings you peace, contentment, and happiness. I call the kairos moments. They are timeless moments. They are also priceless moments.
Kairos moments don't come because your table at Thanksgiving looked like it could be in a Pottery Barn catalog, or because you have a 70" TV in your living room just in time for the Super Bowl party. They come when you least expect it and when you are fully present.
You get trapped when you think you'll receive more kairos moments and happiness only IF you buy that beautiful Thanksgiving table shown in the Pottery Barn catalog. This permanent happiness, being sought after by most of us, becomes an unbounded wish/desire. We then buy things that we believe will make us happy when rarely will those items (or the time spent in receiving the coins to acquire them) ever provide the long-term happiness we seek.
That is why it's important to set bounds to the wish. By determining what it is you really wish, you can more easily set the bounds for the price you'll pay.
Using the Pottery Barn Thanksgiving table example, what is it that you truly desire? Is it the rustic and warm feel the images provide or is it the large smiling family and friends seated around it? Maybe the food looks really good. Whatever it is, it's not the table or the dishes or the people or the food, it's the feeling you want and that image provoked that feeling in you.
Now that you've separated the feeling from the material items for purchase in the catalog, where do you see a price for the feeling in the Pottery Barn catalog? You don't. That's because it's priceless. This doesn't mean you shouldn't buy a nice TV or make your table beautiful for Thanksgiving, it means that really knowing what it is you desire by defining it, you can better set the price you're willing to pay.