I was browsing through personal finance articles and came upon this recent article by Rodney Sessions on net worth (in the Hattiesburg American). Rodney spends the majority of the article asking why we shouldn’t consider other things as part of our net worth. I’m not sure Rodney understands the point of calculating your net worth. He seems to be implying that people’s net worth is somehow a measure of how great, or terrible they are. He uses the example of three CEO’s that made $100 million last year. He asks what their “true net worth is”. Again, I’m not sure he really understands what net worth means.
Net worth shouldn’t be a measure of what kind of person you are. It has nothing to do with how moral or immoral you are or how much money you make. It doesn’t mean you are any more or less a man than your neighbor or friend. Net worth is simply a measurement of your finances. It simply shows you what your financial situation is. So, I’m not really sure what Rodney’s point is. I think he meant to say that the amount of money you have isn’t necessarily as important as the kind of person that you are. My goal in life is to be a good person, help others, and teach my daughter how to be a good person that cares about others and treats others with respect. At the end of my life, I do hope that people look back at my life and say, “He was a good husband, father, friend, brother, son and citizen”. I don’t want them to look back at my life and say, “He had a lot of money at the expense of others”.
Maybe what Rodney should consider doing is to come up with a new measurement that can tangibly measure the quality of the person.
“Net worth” could have a sense other than financial. “Worth” certainly has a sense other than financial, and “net” simply means total. So… you could argue that *true* “net worth” must take into account non-financial, and even non-quantitative aspects of a person. But, “net worth” in common use almost always means “financial net worth.”
You already are!!!