As a teacher, I am a little bit obsessive about my school supplies. Mostly, I buy them myself for my classroom, and I often form unnatural bonds with the special things—sharpies, post-it notes, cardstock. I am especially weird about my set of multi-color, felt-tip, thin pens. I use them for everything. I hide them from my students. I rotate them so they last longer. And when one of those pens starts to lose ink, I have a very hard time throwing it away. I understand that logically it is not going to suddenly start working better; it’s a losing battle. Yet, I will continue to choose that pen, get frustrated and finally trade it out for a different one for weeks, sometimes months, before taking control of the situation and throwing it away.

Everyone has those little things that we refuse to throw away or remove from our lives, even though we’ve determined that they no longer add value to our lives. Whether they are knick-knacks that don’t match our homes, shoes that cause blisters every time you wear them or outdated magazines that just take up space on the coffee table, we all have those things that were once meaningful or useful to our lives. Yet we continue to allow them to remain, long after it has become clear that there is no longer value added. Maybe they once had an impact on us, held sentimental value or provided help in some way. If they no longer serve their purpose, why are they still here?

Taking this train of thought to a new level, how can this be applied to the more important, more influential things in our lives: people, careers, habits, philosophies? Are there relationships that seem to just drain you every time you encounter that person? Is your job a passion or a paycheck? Do we continue to operate with habits in our daily lives that waste time or take more energy than necessary? Are we still holding to truths that we have outgrown as we’ve gained wisdom?

Of all the things we allow into our lives, to shape us, to direct our steps, to hold a measure of influence over us, do we ever consider how much, if any, value these seemingly influential forces add to our lives? Lately it has come to my attention that we often succumb to the waves of events that seem to crash over us without our say so. We allow these non-valuable things and people to remain, to take up space, to define us. But do we have to invite all of that in? What if we were more deliberate in the decisions about who and what we allow into our lives? What if we filtered every new experience through the mesh of value added?

I know we’ve been taught to live lives of purpose. We seek to make our mark, hopefully in kind and pleasant ways that better the lives of everyone around us. So the next step in considering this concept is to ask yourself, Do I add value to the people, events, circumstances around me? Once we begin to evaluate our lives in terms of value added, we can begin to shed the unnecessary and develop a laser-beam focus on contributing to the value of others. To live in a world in which everyone works with joy and purpose, relationships build and encourage and ideas perpetuate new thoughts would be a valuable life indeed. It could even be a life in which all the pens work.