Self-Worth: The Army Within.
Self-Worth: The Army Within.
Written by Reid Reineke
Self-Worth: The Army Within
It's a beautiful sunday morning, the light is just beginning to cut through the trees, and the sound of waves crashing can be heard from the beach below. My head is throbbing, my mood groggy, it's the closing of an amazing weekend palooza with my closest of friends. One full of games, laughs, camp fires, and you guessed it, drinking.
After cleaning up and saying goodbyes, I am left with the come down of the silent house which so shortly ago was filled with so much life. Then, right there, in my hangxiety, it appears. That pressure. The one to think of my place in this world. The one to compare myself, go over my actions, or worry about ones moving forward.
This time… I ignore it.
What is self-worth?
The thing that makes the human experience so unique, is our ability to conceptualize and think about ourselves abstractly. With this ability we can imagine hypothetical situations, relive the past, and envision the future. We, unlike other animals, are able to step outside the now, and slide around constructing other realities in our mind.
When we do this, though we are not always aware, there tends to be a narrative or point of view we take on. The rose colored glasses through which we reflect on our place in the events of the world is what I like to call, self-worth.
Definition: the internal and unconditional belief in yourself.
Self-worth being unconditional is an important aspect to take into account. What this means is that it doesn’t have to change based on any piling up of evidence. That is, if you believe you are a loser, no amount of trophies will necessarily change that.
You would think what happens externally has a strong basis to change us internally, but actually it’s funny because it seems to work more in the other direction. Meaning our self-worth is able to bend and shift the narratives in our mind that contribute to defining our reality as we know it. It works as a sort of gravity, shifting the way we perceive our world.
Now, this belief can of course either be positive or negative. Seems pretty simple, right? In a way it is, but I believe there are additional challenges that add complexity. So I made a scale to represent this below:
Just like most things, self-worth is a constant balancing act, a work of tension between many different elements. Even too much positivity, and now you may have walked yourself into pride.
It’s worthy to note how both ends of the scale meet up in a place of self centeredness. This is no coincidence, there is of course very little difference between pride and self-loathing, both are different versions of an aggrandized sense of self. Commonly those who have isolated themselves through self centeredness, can easily jump from self-loathing to pride, or vice versa (I know, I’ve done this). It’s a painful, fragile, dramatic, and lonely place to be.
Anyways, the scale can maybe be more accurately depicted as the circle below, where there are 3 tiers: Self-Centered, Practical, and Indifferent.
There is a strong argument to be made that indifference is the key to happiness or whatever, but that is on some spiritual shit, and I am not here to tell you how to live your life.
That being said, we all come into this world at a point of indifference, until one day we spawn our self-awareness in the checkout of a CVS. Following that life happens to us, potentially pushing our meter one way or another, and at some point, for one reason or another, most of us accept a view of ourselves which can be quite distorted.
The key word here is accept. Because at some point, if you’d like to change this, you’ll need to consider this is a choice you’re making. If not, you deflect responsibility to the whims of the world around you.
Why does this matter?
Well we are all at odds with the world around us, whether it’s trying to get that new job, dealing with a toxic partner, or just some crazy lady at a cafe having a mental breakdown (my favorite). We are all competing to survive and get ahead.
If you lack proper self-worth, you could be now fighting both the world around you and inside you, and with a battle on all sides, you truly stand no chance. The army supposed to be fighting for you, has taken up against you. In a way, having constant negative self-worth is almost like having an autoimmune disease.
A few clichés comes to mind:
“If you don't believe in yourself, why should anyone else?”
“If you don't have yourself, you don't have anyone”
However the most difficult part about having negative self-worth or being self-centered is that you’re rarely able to recognize it as the issue. There’s a beautiful line from George Orwell which describes this well: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.”
The amount of tricks your mind is willing to play on itself as to not see, or just sit with an uncomfortable truth is damn remarkable.
I know… I tried them all under the sun.
Avoiding the issue by filling up my time with “productivity”, making strict routines. Spending countless hours thinking with zero action, and eventually being terrified to do so. Expecting some sort of perfect career or girl to appear before me. Drawing myself into a box, holding dearly to assumptions which only hurt me. Thinking my pain is so unique, thinking “I’m special”, bathing in self pity, and wishing something would save me. Oh and of course, the kicker, not believing myself capable of addressing the problem.
The truth just being I didn’t love myself, or even know what it would mean to love myself. Because if I did, I wouldn’t give a fuck what other people thought, I wouldn’t have any trouble finding motivation, I’d stand up for myself, I’d deal with any problem that came my way, and I wouldn’t have any trouble attempting to make space for me in this world.
And… I thought myself way too important. When the reality is, no one cares, or could ever possibly care as much as you can about yourself, and that can be damn terrifying, or extremely liberating. You get to decide.
Kinda funny that we can spawn here and believe we are ill equipped to be ourselves.
To go, let me give you a dose of Emmerson:
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
If you enjoyed this, join my newsletter to receive updates, share it with a friend, or reach out to me at reidtreineke@gmail.com
Afterthought
Now here’s a funny thing about this piece, I wrote it mostly for those who have struggled with constant negative self-worth like myself. But this does not mean the answer is to always have a positive self-worth. For example, if you are truly a bad person, it’s probably because you have a positive self-worth when you could use some more negative…
Inspirations:
Self-Reliance - Ralph Waldo Emmerson
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck - Mark Manson