You will always feel worthless when you look for others to tell you that you’re good enough. The pat on the back that you deserve will never come until you recognize your own value. When we feel worthless, it’s because we’re waiting on others to see what we want them to see in us.
We dismiss ourselves as worthless because no one notices us.
Everyone that we interact with is going to place an undervalued “price tag” on us that has nothing to do with who we really are. We can free ourselves from the anxiety of caring about what others think when we realize that the value people place on us is how they see themselves.
There’s no way that they will accept you, because deep down inside, they don’t recognize their own reflection staring back at them in the mirror.
As cliché as it might sound, our value truly comes from within, but only when we notice it for ourselves. Imagine looking around for your phone, hoping that your friend on the other end can help you find it when it’s in your hand. That’s what it looks like when you put yourself down, because no one is lifting you up.
Life has this funny way of falling in love with what we love about ourselves. Not the kind of self-love that is based on the condition of acceptance from others, but the kind of self-love that loves even if it isn’t recognized. The world notices what we give, when we give more of what we find valuable in ourselves.
Your passions. Your abilities. The customer you went above and beyond to help that could never pay you back. The homeless guy at the gas station that can eat for a couple of more days because of you.
There is no universal metric to define worth, which is why it shouldn’t matter what people think.
No amount of money or possessions can determine our value. The only way to find out where your worth lies is to pay attention to what you’re willing to give the most of without the expectation of anything in return. What is it that you love so much that you do it because it gives you fulfillment without praise from others?
That’s where your worth comes from.
When something is given freely, it has more worth because it comes easily with no strings attached. When price and conditions are placed on what we give, it loses value over time.
When something is priceless, it’s value increases over time, making it impossible to put a price on it.
When something comes from you, and you’re completely oblivious to whether others notice or not, that’s where your worth lies. You become free flowing and infinite in your giving when it’s based on what you love about yourself. Your creativity becomes restricted and you run dry when you look outside of yourself for something that was never supposed to come from anywhere else but you.
There was a time when I thought I was worthless because of what others might think about my job title. I didn’t notice what I had to offer until I fell in love with what I had to offer my job, and that’s when I discovered value within myself. That’s when I realized that I was actually worth something.
I began to give more, because I knew how it would make me feel to receive the same from others. It gave me so much joy to give someone money that I knew I would never see again. To give a random stranger a kind word or a hug made me feel as though I was on the receiving end.
I discovered that by being a spontaneous, indiscriminate giver, my value increased. I fell in love with giving what I loved about myself to the point where there was no way to put a limit or price tag on what I gave. My worth increased because it didn’t matter who noticed or if they appreciated what I gave. So I gave freely, and I gave genuinely.
By nature, people have an “increase” mindset. More money. More things. More fun. More sleep.
Almost no one is content with what they have, because it’s possible to have more. Almost no one is content with who they are, because it’s possible to be more. “More” is about others and what they think. “Worth” is about you and how it makes you feel, and it can’t help but spill over on to others.
I felt like I had to be more and have more in order to get people to notice my worth. When I realized that I was enough and that I had enough, I discovered that I wasn’t worthless.
People began to notice what I noticed in myself.
We give, and then we wonder why people are unimpressed or ungrateful. We give, and it seems like it was all for nothing when we don’t get the appreciation or recognition we think we deserve. I’m sure you’ve been through this, and so have I.
When we do things that seemingly fail because of someone’s inability to notice what we’ve done, it’s because it was never meant for them. It was for us all along. Worth isn’t measured by the crowd or the recipient.
You’re worthy because you discovered your own value, even if the world hasn’t noticed yet.
