What Are You Worth?

If you’re among those who struggle every month to make ends meet, you might say you’re not worth all that much. Bankers, of course, would agree. But in Bangladesh, the Grameen Bank seeks out the poorest of citizens and makes loans to them without requiring collateral. The bank’s founder, Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Laureate, believes that “millions of small people with their millions of small pursuits can add up to create the biggest development wonder.”

The perception that people are only worth the sum total of their purchasing power stems from modern-day corporate cravings for your hard-earned dollars. Historically, individual worth was based on our ability to shape society through our actions—not shop with our wallets. Improving society created new opportunities, not shopportunities. Being wealthy meant one could share their wealth to promote the common good and gain celebrity status as a philanthropist. But most of today’s excess wealth is spent on personal adornments such as multi million-dollar mega-yachts, multi-million-dollar birthday parties, billion-dollar homes, and unspeakable investments in hedge fund derivatives.

What about you? Do you calculate your worth by what you can purchase, or by what you can give?

If you measure your worth according to your purchasing power, or by the value of your 401k, your home, or other valued assets, you’ve bought into the grand economic scheme that decapitates good judgment and leads millions of good people onto the endless merry-go-round of borrowing more to spend more, to acquire more, to show-off more, to “be more". Worse, it offers a shameful sense of false security––as many learned during the world debt crisis and economic collapse that began in 2007.

Financial security can never be purchased, especially when it’s sold with false expectations under false pretenses. But genuine security, the kind that survives financial meltdowns, can easily be established when we give––not in terms of cash but in terms of self. If you're like most people who work hard, you may feel too exhausted to give anything. But the giving of self is what originally built our nation from the ground up and grew it into the wealthiest nation in the world.

Studies show that when we give to others we feel more energized, happier, and wealthier in our spirit. Also, when we freely offer our goodness in the form of knowledge, talents, skills, and wisdom to others, we uplift ourselves and others. Ultimately, through sharing ourselves, community bonds are strengthened, agreements are reached, peace evolves, values are shared, and trust is established. Who needs a bank when we can endow each other with our unique gifts? What better financial security do we need?

Youtropolis helps you grow a new kind of wealth through our Weconomy. Whenever you take an action in your city’s Municipal Fund, your Weconomy earns kindreds, our own virtual currency. Even though every action is quick and easy to take, together they provide a huge return on your time investment: they don’t only earn kindreds, they also earn you new friends, respect, personal satisfaction, and growth. Best of all, in the process of giving, you receive what you need in return.

Think about this: if you had to make a choice between receiving: a) $100,000, or b) one penny into your bank account that doubles every day for thirty days, what choice would you make? A banker would make that choice for you: he’d welcome you with open arms if you chose option a, and laugh you out of the bank if you chose option b. But by the end of thirty days, your penny would have multiplied to a whopping $10,737,417.60, whereas the $100,000 would have earned only a few pennies.

Taking small actions every day may not add up to millions of dollars, but it might give you the kind of wealth money can’t buy: ongoing fun, real connections, a sense of well-being, more happiness, better emotional and physical health, and friends who are always in your corner supporting you in one way or another.

To paraphrase Muhammad Yusuf, “millions of good people with their millions of small actions can add up to create the biggest social wonder." It’s what our social Weconomy is all about.