What makes me worthy?
I am scrolling through Twitter and I come across a tweet that stops me in my tracks. I read the tweet and I’m in instant agreement with what is being said, so much so that I bookmark the tweet so that I can keep coming back to it.
As someone who often makes the mistake of approximating self-worth or worthiness with achieving things or being “successful” as per society’s standards, it is a liberating reminder that I have had it the wrong way all along. Perhaps feeling worthy first could help be more indifferent towards achievements which in turn could help me achieve more things that are actual achievements more aligned to what I really want to accomplish.
I know this because I’ve been on this track of chasing after an achievement hoping it’ll make me more confident, make me look more accomplished, more successful, and more worthy in the eyes of people. Sure, some of these achievements have helped me improve my confidence and have made me feel good temporarily, but the goalpost always seems to shift and the monkey brain of mine keeps seeking this validation from others that I can achieve bigger and bigger things and if I don’t, it’ll make me a lesser being of some sorts.
I believe that a lot of this angst of mine could be mitigated if I more clearly define what it means to be worthy and worthy for what. Let’s do this right now so that I could keep coming back to it in moments I feel not worthy or when I’m confused about my self worth.
So, what makes me worthy?
I recently read the book “The Courage to be Disliked” which took the stance on self-worth along the lines, “We are all worthy just by existing. If we exist, we are worthy.” I like this stance. It doesn’t put the burden on me trying to do something or achieve something to deem myself worthy. And, as hard as it might be to reprogram my brain into thinking this way, I believe this is the way.
But, an important question to ask here is “worthy for what?”. It is an important question because a lot of times we conflate being worthy for a specific thing to being generally worthy in life (being appropriate for life). I’ll give you an example, suppose you give a job interview and are rejected due to lack of preparation. You might not be wrong in thinking that you were not worthy for the job but that doesn’t mean that you’re not worthy in life or professionally. And, it is not easy to keep these two separate.
It’s also important to understand that being worthy doesn’t make you entitled to anything. You being worthy means that you are appropriate for things in life, that you are enough and your value as an individual is not less (or more) that anyone else. Entitlement on the other hand makes you expects benefits or privileges without necessarily having earned them.
Does feeling worthy and not having to prove my worthiness via achievements make me unambitious? No. I think it’s quite the contrary. When you’re not trying to prove yourself to others and feel worthy in just being yourself you can actually be more ambitious, express yourself more freely and strive for goals that are really the things that you want irrespective of what the society thinks of you. Or, as Naval Ravikant says, “The only true test of intelligence is if you get what you wanted out of life.”
A lot people also don’t feel worthy of love (or being loved) and while this is along the lines of not feeling worthy in general, I’d like to write about in it more detail later. I’ll leave you with this powerful quote by Nathaniel Branden from the book “The Six Pillars of Self Esteem”.
If my aim is to prove I am “enough,” the project goes on to infinity—because the battle was already lost on the day I conceded the issue was debatable.