Of Kings and Peasants and Other Nonsense
Understanding Value, Grappling with Self-Worth, and Developing an Accurate Portrait of Ourselves
The answer to "You are not the king or queen of the universe," cannot be "You are the trash of the world, the crap of existence." Our lives are weighed down by our battle between what and who we believe ourselves to be, and who we really are. And we leave the answers too often to people who either care nothing for us, or care far too much about pleasing us. In these extremes we often find both a storm of pleasure and disappointment, the dragon of varying highs we chase with as much abandon as we do the needle. Tragically, we keep drinking the same water again and again, as we continue to seek answers from the cup that first poisoned us so long ago.
“We are a people who give our identity into the hands of those who have no business defining it.”
We live in a world that loves to remind us that we are not as beautiful or powerful as we might have thought, not as influential, not as memorable or loveable, or well thought of as we believe ourselves to be. Simultaneously, we live in a time of great narcissism, flattery, and obsession, an era of social media adulation, of Only Fans, Twitter and Tik Tok, and a cascade of endless selfies that we can edit, reshape, and polish until almost nothing of the truth remains. This makes for a pretty unholy marriage of two seemingly contradictory mindsets. For us, this union creates a uniquely confusing and destructive combination of forces, wherein we are batted back and forth between self-worship and self-hatred, never finding a reasonable equilibrium.
We are a people who give our identity into the hands of those who have no business defining it...to advertising moguls and pornographers, to celebrities, media titans, and politicians, to random influencers and fans, and to anyone with a desire to air their opinion, even to certain friends and acquaintances who don’t necessarily have our best interests in mind.
Our inclinations and our view of ourselves are often forged by whatever shifting public or political opinion holds sway at the moment, whatever is spoken most often, or shouted about the loudest. We foam at the mouth for one more "like," another thumbs up, one more round at the great psychic-digital masturbation machine. But inside, we feel wretched and lost - refugees in our own homes. We are over-connected and under-loved, over-stimulated but malnourished.
We are not gods, no matter how much we want to be. And no amount of technology or adoration will make us so. But we are also not worthless. We are not the accidental dust gatherings of happenstance, or mere walking, talking bags of water and meat, blessed or cursed with this astounding thing known as consciousness, simply to blow it all on hedonic pleasures and chronic depression.
People love to size us up, to break us down, to continually level the playing field, so to speak, and usually do so in a manner that breaks apart some corner of our humanity and our dignity. We've all been taken down a few pegs, not only by others, but often by ourselves - the dark thoughts we ponder that thin our blood, the dark words we utter that grind us slowly into powder. In fact, the reason most people spend their time and efforts picking apart our life is because they're avoiding the considerable effort of reevaluating their own.
Holding an accurate view of oneself is no small task. Indeed, on some level it is impossible, given how fluid our nature is, how central, constant change is to our own development. But there is a core identity within each of us, more accurately, an essential and inherent worth and value we either recognize, appreciate, and access, or don't see because we've been taught to remain blind to it. Most often, we vacillate between these positions, stumbling about somewhere in-between our revelation of its presence and our ignorance of the very same, depending on the season or the circumstance.
The great lie here, the governing fiction seated above the panel of other ruling lies, runs deeper. It is the idea that we are not enough and are desperately in need of fixing, and that the only answer to this is more praise, more volume, more popularity, more fleeting pleasures, more shouting, more rage, more lights that flicker and fade, more of everything we already know isn't working.
“The opinions we carry of ourselves and of others seem pinned to unreachable standards. It is a scale of weights and measures so out of sync with reality, that we don’t seem to know how to accurately account for our own attitudes, ideas, and actions, much less those of someone else. ”
Why this idea continues to thrive is that for all its falsehood, it carries with it a small measure of truth. We are broken, each one of us, in several ways. We are imperfect beings with a long list of personal compromises, terrible words and deeds, various mistreatments of others, betrayals, pervasive idleness, and countless personal failures. And yes, we are in need of fixing. And this repair lasts our entire life. It is part of our search for meaning, our transformation from child to adult, from self-seeking to self-sacrificing, from naivety and utter need, to wisdom, grace and leadership, and from perpetual filling to a place where we are equally pouring out into the hearts and minds of those around us.
The opinions we carry of ourselves and of others seem pinned to unreachable standards. It is a scale of weights and measures so out of sync with reality, that we don't seem to know how to accurately account for our own attitudes, ideas, and actions, much less those of someone else. And the disparity between perception and reality, between fact and fiction is widening.
Finding some semblance of a clear view will only begin to crystallize when we stop using our broken systems of measurement to calculate our worth. I am a theist, one who believes in God. ("God, help him," right? :-), So, I see human value in relation to a given worth and value bestowed by a loving creator. But it goes the same for anyone, no matter what you believe. Our core value is either inherent, as in pre-existent and self-evident, or it isn't, and we must earn or beg for it. The latter nonsense seems to be the most prevalent item on the menu, this notion of begging and clawing for a handful of self-worth and public value. The interesting thing is, there isn't just one kind of value, but two, and we're often mixing them up and putting them in places where they have no business being.
There is a kind of value that we do accumulate throughout life, based upon what we build, achieve, overcome, create, and leave behind. This is developed or earned by what we offer to the world. But this is different from inherent value, the kind we are born with, that which no one can take from us unless we allow them to do so. Understanding the difference between these two, knowing how each functions and defines us, and engaging with the world honestly by doing everything we can to reveal and affirm inherent value, while inspiring and modeling behavior that builds earned value, is a wonderful place to find ourselves. Spending more time in this place not only strengthens those near to us, it clarifies our purpose and helps to carefully remove bits of damaging or superfluous material that have been weighing us down for years.
The curious thing is, those with a noticeable helping of character and integrity usually have a pretty solid fix on their own worth. Notice the traits I used. I didn't say those who are merely successful, those who are wealthy or famous or respected by the masses. I said those who possess character. The rich and poor alike can eat from that tree in equal measure. The famous and obscure are both privy to all moral and spiritual highways.
Value, depending on what category it falls into, either exists within us from birth, or we build it by using this innate value to fuel earned value, which is the essence of how an abundance of confidence works in our favor, while arrogance does not. Neither brand of value were meant to be in the hands of other people, especially the more foundational of the two. I've had a few folks disagree with me on this. And while it made for interesting conversation, I didn't find the argument convincing. Here's why. If someone can give you value, then they can also take it away.
People can make us feel devalued. They can make us feel worthless and utterly invisible. But they cannot remove your value. They can't make you worthless, even if they ignore, bully, betray, or abuse you. Your feelings matter a lot. The complexity of our emotional experiences is important for our personal journey through life. But, if feeling worthless made us worthless then therapists, best friends, mentors, loving parents, and other supportive people should all be out of a job. Isn't that what a good friend does when you're down...lift you up, remind you of the irrevocable value you possess? Don't good counselors give you a greater understanding of yourself and your psychological processes so you can recognize your own worth and potential and make better choices based on these tools and revelations? Don't parents, siblings, and valued acquaintances of all kinds, affirm the value and identity that already exists within you?
“Our conflation of emotional upheaval, which is a temporary breaking inside, with our essential identity, is damaging in ways that are difficult to spot, sometimes for years.”
It is okay to feel devalued. The words and actions of others will sometimes do this to us, even in the extreme. It is not okay to absorb this as food, to digest and assimilate this material into the genetic makeup of our psyche. These justifiable feelings are not a picture of your identity, or a testament to the story of your life.
Our conflation of emotional upheaval, which is a temporary breaking inside, with our essential identity, is damaging in ways that are difficult to spot, sometimes for years. And the longer we remain in this state of mind, the more unconscious and integrated our emotional unease becomes and the more difficult it is to find healing from great disappointment and trauma. It is one thing to stitch a wound while it is still somewhat fresh, and quite another to open the body years later in the hope of repairing everything that has since woven itself into our tissues. Life is not a zero-sum game. No man or woman is just one thing. Nor do ideas about us necessarily constitute reality, no matter how convincing they may sound.
So, what is the right view of ourselves? I'd be guilty of overreaching if I said that one description would perfectly suffice for every individual. Human beings are too layered for this over-simplification. But as a general rule, focusing your time and energy on things less likely to fade, and people more likely to love you no matter the level of your popularity and despite your many flaws, is a great place to start.
Whether it be in your finances or your friendships, your personal education habits, in fitness and nutrition, in creative work and in business, or in marriage and parenting, approaching each of these with a long-term mindset will always yield results you can be proud of. Don't pay so much attention to what everyone else thinks of you. Instead, spend more time learning about what others think.
While our world would have you believe otherwise, you honor yourself more by not worshiping your own image and your own life. You actually affirm your existence by loosening your grip on it, by uncovering more humility. And you turn this into fuel for individual growth because doing business, creating art, guiding others, and exploring the world, at least if you want to do them well, asks that we put away the two equally destructive fictions that push and pull us daily, this belief that we are either worthless or that we are worth so much more than everyone else.
Doing life well, in such a way that the waves we leave behind us move the people we encounter toward better versions of themselves, brings a satisfaction to our deepest places, a brand of fulfillment that no temporary praise or ignorant attack against us will ever be able to remove.
The fleeting adoration will one day cease. The beauty of our physical body will at last give up the glory of its landscape - remember what the great philosopher Thom Yorke once said "He used to do surgery for girls in the 80s, but gravity always wins." Every attack against us will go silent, every product of unwarranted malice, jealousy, superiority, or hatred will be hushed. But the lives you impact on your way through this world will forever change the course of human existence.
When you call up the inherent value inside others, when you encourage, enlighten, affirm, teach, and protect that which is sacred in each of us, these individuals too, will do the same in the lives of those to follow. Our choices reverberate throughout time. Our value is only diminished when we ignore it and degrade ourselves and others by turning life into a ceaseless popularity contest or a bully's playground fantasy. Our worth is immovable, until we sell it on the cheap in exchange for things whose value can be counted in a moment and whose importance can be lost with the quickness of a third grade romance.
=