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The Broken Flip Flop


Dahlia, (a six year old Yazidi girl that really looked more like a three year old), walked up to me limping. I looked down to see a worn out flip flop on her dirty left foot and nothing but rocks and prickly thorns under her bare right foot. She held a broken flip flop in her arms as if it were a baby. She had tears in her eyes; without shoes, she couldn’t do anything or go anywhere. 

I scooped her up, set her on a bench, and set at work to fix the shoe. It took about 10 minutes to search for some twine, another 5 to find scissors, and about 30 more to actually fix the broken flip flop. After it was all said and done, I realized I spent over forty-five minutes on the project.

I gave Dahlia her flip flop and she thanked me over and over again as if I just gave her the world. As she ran away, I knew perfectly well that the flip flop would break again in a day or two. I sat on the bench for a little longer and did a bit of mental math about how economically inefficient my time was spent. The breakdown below calculates the value of my lost opportunity cost: 

Average Hourly Wage (United States)*:   $21.42
Time Spent on Fixing Flip Flop:   45 Minutes
Opportunity Cost Spent:   $21.45 x 0.75 Hours = $16.07 
Replacement Value Flip Flop:   $1.00 (If that?)
Cost of Lost Opportunity:   $15.07

(*Average Hourly Wage in the United States according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017)

I was amazed. In the time I spent fixing Dahlia’s sandal, I could’ve bought her 16 new pairs! I don’t want to provide too much commentary on this experience, but I do think this vignette provides food for thought. A few questions that I could attempt to answer now, but I’m not going to: 

Did I waste my time? Money? Opportunity?
How much is the shoe worth to Dahlia? (What would Dahlia’s opportunity cost be if she didn’t have shoes?)
Did I do this calculation when I bought the $42.00 Tevas that were on my feet?

This is not meant to be a guilt trip about why we shouldn’t buy expensive shoes or a statement of why we should or shouldn’t all go abroad to work with refugees, but I do hope we keep finding more and better ways to help people.

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