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How to Value Your Self Worth

Do you know how to value your self worth — whether as an individual, a family member, or an employee?

That’s a complicated question. Is it you who decides how other people see you, or is it those other people? Perhaps there might be a third option, one which could be neither, or even both.

More than that, what do we mean by ‘worth’: are we talking in terms of a person’s net worth, as determined by Google, or are we thinking about how our parents value us? This question isn’t as simple as it first appears.

How to Judge Yourself

We have to answer this question by determining both the judge of our worthiness and the scale we’re being judged on. After all, you’ll get different results for different reasons if we asked the same question to your parents, a coworker who barely knows you, or the internet at large.

how to judge yourself

That brings up our first realization: this topic is incredibly subjective. Anyone you ask has a different definition of worth and thus a different scale to judge it by, as well as different opinions on you. So if we try to judge our worth using different people on Earth, we’ll never know what it is.

It’s always changing, based on circumstance, occupation, affluence, current friendships, and the ever-fluctuating social currency called ‘status’. Surely, we don’t want to hang our sense of worth on other people.

Unfortunately, you can’t trust yourself, either. That’s easy enough to see: how often has your self-worth shifted in your own eyes? It just depends on the day: many people judge themselves based on their station in life, which fluctuates frequently.

Or maybe it’s based on your family status, but can’t that change based on a mood swing from just one of your family members?

And you certainly can’t rely on your possessions to help you determine your own worth, or what happens? A car wreck, natural disaster, or just unfortunate timing can remove any of that and–if that’s where your trust is–your self-worth goes with it.

Everything we can point to in our personal lives can shift incredibly quickly, which doesn’t lend itself to solidity.

Take a minute and think: what can you base your worth on? What will last through life, staying constant the whole way? What can we rely on to help give us something solid, whilst all of life is shifting around us?

The answer? Nothing here on Earth, that’s for sure. This world always moves quickly, too quickly to be steady. Where is our security? Somewhere non-physical.

We have a choice: we can choose to cling to this universe and permanently be on an emotional rollercoaster, or we can go towards a different answer: that there is something solid beyond this world. What would that solidity be?

cs-lewis-quotes

This world is built to be purposefully unstable, so that humans would be forced to look past this physical existence to find anything truly lasting. Where can we put our self-worth? If we put it on something physical, it’s just going to shift consequently and unexpectedly.

But, if we can put it with something never-changing, then we don’t have to rely on perfect life circumstances to be considered worth something.

The Bible speaks of a God outside of this world; an eternal God, who never changes, who also loves the humans that He made. A steady force outside of our influence who cares about every person on this Earth. Someone that will never change or leave us behind: and we can take comfort in the fact that we are cared for, regardless of our physical circumstances.

Which option is the better one: surety or unsurety? Security, or not? Confidence in self or eternally questioning your very worth?

You are Valuable to God

There are many reasons as to why you should consider God as an option, which other articles will cover, but this is one as well: practically, God existing would make your life a lot more sure and a lot more stable.

Who determines our worth? If it’s you, that doesn’t work very well; if it’s other humans, that doesn’t last any longer; but if it’s God, then we have something that lasts, and that is worth much more than anything we could ever make ourselves.

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