Self Worth

When we are teenagers a great deal of our feelings of self worth come from what our peers think of us. How we are perceived by the people who count in our lives basically frames what we think of ourselves. As we get older and more mature the opinion of our peers generally matters less as we grow more self confident.

I believe how we think about ourselves is always a mix of our own internal commentary and the opinion of those around us, this mix is often in flux. It takes a very strong person who is really confident in their own skin not to be influenced about what others think of us, especially those whose opinions matter most.

How do we know what others think of us? They often tell us! Words from the people you love are absolutely key...the right words or the wrong words can either build us up or destroy us. I think the basic difference between adults and teenagers in this regards is whose opinion matters. When we are teenagers, we often value peoples opinions who we don't like, let alone that we are close to. As we get older we understand that most peoples opinions don't really matter. We become selective in who we listen to, and who we want to impress. Its part of our hardwiring as social creatures, we want to build bonds with each other and the best way to build bonds is to have others like and love us.

When I was a young buck and had the world by its tail I really didn't care what anyone thought of me. I had many friends in university and I really thought I knew all about the world and how things worked and was extremely confident in my approach. I think this was in part because I was in such great physical shape, not only was I fighting fires in the summer I spent 2 hours a day in the gym. I was pretty selfish and thought I had all the answers, so peoples opinions really didn't matter that much. I didn't really look externally for validation as I believed I knew everything better than anyone else!

Now that I am older, the one thing in life that I know for certain is that I don't know all of the answers. Maybe that is really the key to maturing, that we realize we don't know it all, but it really should go hand-in-hand with not looking that hard for external validation.

I've been going through a number of existential issues as of late, one of which is my own worth...what value do I add to my relationships? What value do I add to work? To life etc? How does my own opinion reflect the reality? Maybe it is a completely futile to even try to define this, but for whatever reason this is something I have been pondering over the last little while. I think it is all part of my effort to take stock of my life, and where I am on this crazy ride. Maybe it is a mid-life crisis!!! I know a little sports car will solve all of these problems!!

I think for awhile I greatly overestimated what value I add to many of the aspects of my life, that is work and relationships etc. Its not a bad thing to have a more realistic view of the world, and realize that I don't add anything particularly special to the mix, we can't all be superstars and that is ok. Maybe being ok with being painfully normal is really a secret to being happy and accepting of life.

I will let you know!