Worth is something we all think about on an almost daily basis, though we may not realize we do. It is a general perception of what we are willing to give for something. This can be a person, an experience, an item, a feeling. We don't even realize that we evaluate this sometimes. When we meet new people, we are carefully weighing whether this person is worth giving our time to. In the grocery store we are considering whether its worth spending that much money on what we are going to put in our bodies for fuel. Going to our jobs, we are deciding whether this is worth giving our time to. Not always do we think about this, but it is true.
Being that this is a perception, it is subjective. Yet we miss something under this that most of us don't stop to think about; We are also considering or own worth when we are deciding these things. "Am I worth this? Do I deserve better? Or is this too good for me?" In all seriousness and reality we are putting a value on ourselves.
Why does this matter? What could this possibly matter that it would seem worth writing about? I'm getting there.
Looking inward, we have to understand a certain level of value that we hold. Life is filled with duality and comparison, and we are holding ourselves up to these things to determine what is or is not worth our life or value or time or investment.
As a solid example, I am sitting down this Sunday morning, and I am giving my time over to a blog, a writing project, that I started some time ago. It's something I love doing, and I have let it fall by the way-side, but I feel it is a worth while endeavor. This, to me, is a labor of love. In my real life, the one I spend away from books and pens and keyboards-for-fun, I find people sort of overwhelming at times. I work a call center, and it has its ups and downs. Folks, I'm not going to lie, the things some people call about, I have a hard time somedays with answering the question "What is this world really coming to?" These are the kinds of jobs that can in one call build your sense that this world is doomed and there are nothing but sociopaths the world over, and in the next call, you can come across the most genuine and amazing person, who has just a real and honest question. Duality. Contradiction. It happens. Often.
Away from this, I sit here this morning, on the first of my two days off for the week, and I write to the masses, though it seems I never even get 25 readers, I keep banging away on this keyboard, because I believe that someone will read this with purpose. This is important, it is a valuable thing to me, because I can't save every starfish on the beach, but if I can move just one, then that is worth my time. That and I just really do enjoy writing.
This is worth my time and my investment of energy because I believe that it could do good. I also believe that it serves a purpose for myself. An opportunity to get things out of myself. To share the things I have learned and observed.
So, why does worth matter? What does this have to do with saving anyone? I will tell you.In my life, I have been told things that are awful. I've been called names and told I am all manner of nasty things by people who claimed they loved me or were suppose to watch over me. This is an experience which goes all the way back to my mother. Don't worry, I won't go into the gory details. Just know that it got plenty bad through various times of my life.
For the last few years, however, I have started to look at what truth is. The truth is that these were sad lies told to me by people who had a very poor concept of their own worth.
Worth is far more than just a concept of self and only effects the person holding the idea. What we see in ourselves absolutely and definitively effects how we treat other people. It effects how we interact with the world around us. This is an idea which defines our experience, but also the experience which others have of us.
When we understand that we are valuable, that we have worth and importance in this world, we behave differently. The motivation that this worth springs from, though, is also a factor.
I have had occasion to reconnect with someone very dear to me lately. It is a person who has spent an extended period of time in the presence of a person that used exorbitant energy to build themselves up by tearing this person down. Daily. Constantly. This is really hard to live with. A way of life made harder when you start out believing that this person cares about you, because they have chosen that you are worth the investment. Suddenly you come to the realization that this person had done so in an effort to not only change you, but to make you also look back so they look and feel better. It's a sad experience. Not only is this a horrible way to live, but it is also all too common these days.
Experience is tough to live down sometimes. We see it in every day life and it takes time, and effort, a deep well of energy and a desire to persevere to overcome such a bad experience. Somewhere along the way we were taught this was somehow acceptable. The warning signs were all there but we over ride these thinking it will be okay. Sometimes the chance we take in jumping into these things is worth the risk! Other times, it ends badly, and we may never really understand or know how the effect will play out in that person's life. I believe that even when you are only part of someone's world for a short time, you have the ability to leave a mark on them and that mark can have effects long after you are gone. These things have the ability to change a person's whole life if we are genuine and very, very lucky.
What's the point though? Why does any of this matter? Why share all of this on a Sunday morning with friends and strangers?
If we spend more time looking inward, and we understand what our own worth actually is, and understand that this has the profound ability to effect all those you come in contact with, it can absolutely change the world. The work of one person can have all the change.
To understand your worth, I have to say this; You have deep value based on the very fact that you exist. This life is also a gift that we are inherently unworthy of, except that we have been given the gift.
Its a good time to remind you that what you are reading is the thoughts of a Christian woman, a thinker, a person who has spent a lot of life in dark and ugly places with unhealthy people and come out of it wishing to be a warrior and a champion for others. Someone who wants people to live like they have the worth and value that I know they have.
I believe in a very simple truth; You and me, and the person across the way, we were all made, deliberately, by a Creator. This alone gives us worth and value. The problem of people out there, doing bad and ugly and evil things, is not something I want to address much in this post. I just want to illustrate the fact that not only do you and all of us have worth and value, but that people who behave this way are often damaged similarly to yourself. Sometimes they are simply born missing something, but this is not only rare, it doesn't change that these are still human beings, created, and with value. Far more often, the negative and ugly we encounter is the result of people having a skewed sense of self and self-worth. They don't understand their value. Someone, or more likely many someone's, taught them that they aren't worth much, or anything.
Today, I want you to hear that you were made with an intention, that there is a purpose in your life that can and will matter. It does take work and effort. Me, for example. The same dear friend who is leaving such an ugly situation, has remarked at my sheer willingness to put out there the things that other's won't say. I am willing to hold that mirror up to the scared and the disfigured and let people know that not only is it okay, but it can become the most beautiful thing about you!
There is balance. We are at once invaluable, and unworthy. This life, all we have and hold, it is a gift. These are things given to us because someone made us, and looks on us with such love, and by virtue of our mere existence and the fact that He made us and saw us through the whole of our life, that He chose to give us so much. Yes, bad things happen, but these are as often the results of choices we and others make, and again, these are things that can serve to become beautiful! IF we are willing to look at it so.
I choose each day to see the ugly of my life as a gift I was given to help other's who have gone through similar events. Sometimes even worse. Sometimes less awful. The choice is still to make gold from straw, silk from a sow's ear. We all have our off days, and we need to be able to allow ourselves this, and we need to let ourselves have time to cope with things. No one can or should be "on" at all times. It is part of my coping strategy that I give myself time to rest and to be sad or to mourn things lost to me. To feel the days that the world has lost its color and all I want is to be sad. I have learned this is not only okay, but it's necessary, and if I don't allow myself to go through it sooner rather than later, then what happens, at least for me, is that I end up experiencing a massive hurricane, rather than just a little thunder storm.
All of this, it started with a simple truth. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I have value because I was made by deliberate hands with a deliberate purpose. I have a Father who will talk to me of the things I need and want. I have been given things in my heart that are real, and true, and good, because this is the kind of person I am. What I understand today that I didn't get 11 years ago, is that I am here with purpose, and I am a delight to Him who created me. And He is large enough that He can love us all so much. This world will be a better place, the more that more of us understand that not only do we have value, but also what true humility actually is; a balance between both knowing you are valuable, but also that you have been given a gift for no reason.
