Being worthy

I had a conversation with a colleague last week. He was facing a form of mid-life crisis and struggling.

He felt that he was a failure. He believed that he has let people down – they are disappointed in him. That there was an ideal for his life that he had to live up to and he hadn’t.

In conversations like this, my role is to listen. Which I did, but I also offered some thoughts.

What others think about us does matter. The perceptions of a spouse/lover impacts the depth of their love. The perceptions of colleagues and superiors influence job satisfaction, promotions and the quality of the work environment. The perceptions of voters determine whether a politician is elected or not.

These perceptions are important, but they can also be stifling. This stifling happens when one’s sense of self-worth is overly dependent upon what you think others think of you. In effect one allows others to define you and to determine your self-worth.

Whether a group loves or hates you does not change your intelligence, talents, physical appearance, values or personality. The you that is you is not changed at all by the perceptions of others.

In addition to not allowing the perceptions of others to define your self-worth, you cannot compare yourself to others to determine your worth. How one stacks up against others is not a metric of your life.

One’s life goals can devolve into a view that getting a better score than someone else is the point of life rather than achieving what matters to you. Wealth is an example of something that can be used to keep score. Comparing your job title with those of your friends can be a way to keep score.

In keeping score, you will always encounter the fact that no matter how well you score, someone will have a better score than you. They are better looking or more athletic than you. Unless you are Elon Musk, someone is wealthier than you. In keeping score, you set yourself up as loser. But you are not.

On the flip side, you may conclude that you are more successful, better looking and more athletic than someone else. If you want to compare yourself to someone else, you can always find someone who doesn’t measure up to your view (perhaps inflated) of yourself. That comparison may lead you to conclude that you are superior. But the satisfaction is hollow.

What would you rather say at the end of your days – “My love for my spouse has been a source of extraordinary happiness.” Or “My marriage was better than this other person’s marriage.”

Your worth and life success is defined by you. It is not defined by the expectations of others and it is not define by comparing yourself to others.

My colleague knows all of this. He just needed to hear it again. We all need to hear it again from time to time.