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Determining our self-worth
“Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have.”
- Thomas Edison
Self-worth can be very tough to assess and measure. It’s not like we can assign a dollar amount or some arbitrary number to it. Determining our self-worth requires a more qualitative approach. Some people can be financially wealthy, but morally bankrupt. It can also be the other way around. Not everyone would agree on how to determine someone’s self-worth. There are so many competing variables at play. It’s up to us to determine our own self-worth and whether or not we are living up to our own values.
One way to look at it is to figure out how much value we provide in our personal and professional lives. How much do our family, friends, colleagues and neighbors rely on us? How much of a role do we play in their lives? If we disappeared tomorrow, who would miss us? These are important questions to ask ourselves when calculating our self-worth. Logic would tell us, the more we are missed (for whatever reason), the more value we provided to others. To those people, we would be worth a lot.
Self-worth can be tied in closely to selflessness. When we give our time, money or expertise to others, we help make a positive difference in their lives. We only have so much to give. Some of us have more time and money to give than others. When we are willing…
