NdukuOutLoud

Is It Earned, Owned, or Inherited?

After my recent post where I shamelessly admitted to being unable to stay away from the things I know are bad for me, I’ve been spiralling into a “why.” Why do I stay in situations and circumstances that do more harm than good? Why do I know better, yet still not do better?

I started thinking: maybe it’s because I don’t know my worth.

I can’t take full credit for the epiphany; there was likely an Instagram post that planted the seed. But what’s bothering me isn’t the fact that it might be true-it’s the “how” of it all.

Where does worth actually come from? Can I get it now, or is it too late?

Is it something we’re born with? Does it get passed down? And if it does, then what am I passing down to my wonderful daughter? Worth… or the lack of it?

There is a part of me that wants to believe worth is like a fuel tank. We start with a heart and mind full of it, but every time we do something “unworthy,” the tank empties. The more we compromise ourselves, the less we have left until we feel hollowed out. It’s a sad way to look at a life-seeing ourselves as a collection of previous actions that took away a piece of us every time we didn’t “partake in worthy practices.”

Then there’s the other side: the thought that worth is something we are socialized into. We are told what we are worth by the people around us. That feels inherently unfair. We don’t choose the people we are around when we’re young and helpless, yet they can leave such permanent impacts on our internal value.

If we feel we’ve lost it, can we get it back?

Looking at the world today, it seems like “worth-finding” is our primary occupation. This desire to earn worth is responsible for the glass ceilings we’re shattering and most of the businesses succeeding online. They are successful because they are trying to sell us worth. And we are buying.

We get so focused on earning this worth through material things, the roles we play, and the things we achieve, that we forget who we are without them. We get stuck in the trap of comparing our “acquired worth” to others, when we should be looking inside-building character and sticking to our values.

I feel like we need to redefine worthiness.

I haven’t figured out to “what” yet, but I have a feeling it has nothing to do with what we buy, what we accomplish, or what we’re great at. I think it has everything to do with who we believe we are and our place in this big, big universe. It’s about the intelligence and the love that keeps us here, regardless of whether we did anything “worthy” at all today.