Rarity, Plenty, and Love

"The quality of being rare is what makes something valuable. Anything that is plentiful has very little worth." -Grant Cardone

But what of water, or air, or sunlight? For many, these things are often plentiful. Are water, air, and sunlight worthless to us for whom they are not rarities? Of course not. These things can never be valueless. We depend on them for survival. Only to one who does not value life could any of these three, water, air, and sunlight, ever bear no value.

Perhaps using life's necessities was a cop-out answer. Let's explore something that we can live without, though, I would argue, still is valuable - Unconditional love. The defining characteristic of unconditional love is that it is ceaseless, plentiful. That said, unconditional love does seem to be rare. Despite being perpetual, it is a rather unique occurrence nonetheless. This is where the scarcity lies. Unconditional love might be an ever-flowing tap, but there are very few such taps in the world. Furthermore, these taps generally only flow for one person.

I am leery to say that this scarcity is actually what affords unconditional love value, however. It is not the quality of being rare (though also uniquely plentiful), that makes unconditional love valuable. I believe it would be valuable even if everyone had one or even many ever-flowing love taps. Perhaps, love is simply valuable in and of itself. This might be true. But there is something special about unconditional love. If you are only loved dependent on X conditions, I think that love has different meaning, and thus value, than unconditional love. I suspect that common intuition would agree with me.

One might argue that value being derived from scarcity or plenty can only be ascribed to physical objects. I'd listen to such an argument, though I am not sure I would agree with it. In fact, Mr. Cardone was actually using the opening statement as a segue to say that excuses, non-physical things, are worthless due to their overabundance.

Have I solved anything? I'm not sure. Can the labels rare and plentiful even be ascribed to a thing such as unconditional love, a mere construct? Perhaps you will know better than I. As you consider this, call to mind the love in your life. Regardless of the answer to the above question, I invite you to let gratitude fill your heart. The source of love's value is of less importance than the lone fact that it is.