Self Worth

It is really important to have a sense of one's own value or worth as a person. Your worth should not be measured by what other people say or think of you.

 

Once a young man came to a wise man and said, “I’ve come to you because I feel so worthless that I don’t want to live anymore. Everyone around me says that I’m a failure and a fool. I’m begging you, please help me!”

The wise man glanced at him and hurriedly answered, “I’m sorry, but I’m very busy right now and can’t help you. I have an urgent matter to take care of”... stopped for a moment, thinking, then added, “But if you agree to help me get it done, then I will gladly help you afterwards.”

“Of... of course,” murmured the young man, noting bitterly that yet again his concerns had been dismissed as unimportant. “Great!” said the wise man and took off from his finger a small ring with a gem. “Take a horse and go to the market. I have to sell this ring as soon as possible to pay off a debt. Try to get as much as you can for it and, no matter what, do not take  anything less than a gold coin. Go now and come back as soon as you can.”

The young man took the ring and rode away. When he got to the market and showed the ring to the merchants they looked it over with interest. However, when they heard that it would cost at least a gold coin, they lost all interest.

Some laughed right in his face, others simply turned away, and only one merchant kindly explained that a gold coin was too high of a price for such a ring. The most he could get for it would be a silver coin or a bronze. When the young man heard that, he was distraught, remembering the wise man’s directions not to take anything less than a gold coin. He went through the entire market and offered over a hundred people, but nothing changed.

He got on his horse and rode back to the wise man. “I wasn’t able to sell your ring.” said with sadness. “No one was willing to pay me a gold coin for it. I could get a silver coin, but that’s not what this ring is worth.”

“Now that’s a very important point, my son!” said the wise man. “Before trying to sell the ring, you should find out it’s worth! And who can know that better than a jeweller? You went to the people who hardly knew its value. Remember this, my son like this ring you too are precious and unique! And only a real expert can appreciate your worth. So why are you wasting your time going to random people and believing what they think of you.”

All of us come across those times when we feel ourselves to be completely useless. This mostly happens when we start believing in the worth measurement criteria laid down by the people around us. How they perceive our success or failure becomes our worth. When we repeatedly listen same negative things about us, somewhere in our sub-conscious mind this gets fixed. Afterwards our clever mind starts playing the same blame game with us, which till now was limited to others. It starts haunting the person and in a few cases pushes them to take extreme steps.

 

Throughout his life span an ordinary person keeps on trying to polish his skills and behaviours according to the social norms to fulfil the expectations of the society in which he has to survive. This society consists of his parents, teachers, friends, relatives and acquaintances etc. While it is of great importance to listen to others’ advice, we should equally have faith in our judgement skills. But we often fail to do so. Be it a student, a professional or a house wife, we all should strive to keep ourselves in a healthy company. We should try to be around people who value us irrespective of our successes or failures.

 

Nobody is perfect but considering ourself in a reliably negative manner always is the way to have a gloomy self worth. Improving the quality of our contemplations improves our mental self view. It is completely in our hands.

 

The manner in which we consider ourself currently is our present confidence. But we have freedom and capacity to gather self confidence irrespective of what others think of us. Our own thoughts play a key role in this. Those who always do 'belittling self-talk' will assemble a low perspective on their self-esteem. The more we keep thinking and concentrating on negative contemplations that lower our self worth, the more awful we will feel about ourself.

 

When we let other people dictate what is correct, apt and beautiful, we cannot live our lives the way we want it since we design our objectives dependent on their principles. Being around negative individuals can be distressful. Such individuals are full of negative vitality and will in general be worriers. They generally observe negative or apocalypse out of each circumstance. Those who stay longer with them tend to be like them. Our self worth is greatly determined by the company we keep. When we decide to assemble our confidence, the positive articulations become more grounded in us and the old negative ones get more fragile.

Considering yourself to be significant is an essential attitude. Preferring yourself is a basic human need.  Perceiving your past accomplishments and achievements as learning experiences gives you an increasingly blissful life and enables you to continue to accomplish and achieve more.

 

 

“To love yourself right now is to give yourself heaven. Don’t wait until you die. If you wait, you die now. If you love you live now.”

                                                                                                                                    (Alan Cohen)