What Makes You Feel Worthwhile?

not anything about others or what helping others might do.

Just what about YOU makes you know you are worthwhile?

I'm curious because I have a hard time finding my worth from inside


thanks


SPK

* Hope
* Exercise
* Studying
* Reading 5 portentous fortune cookies in a row
* Tina Turner
* And how much more wonderful my smartphone is when compared to ANYONE else's. :P

Sounds crazy and selfish, but it's so easy to let that part of life go.

Going to the gym is important, eating right is important, all that jazz, but I spend so much time doing things that aren't "for me" that doing something I want to do is a treat.

When I take "me" time I remember that I'm a pretty good writer, or that I like a wide variety of books and music, or that I'm sensitive to certain things about the human condition, or some other little epiphany that I'd somehow forgotten I enjoy about myself. It's not necessarily that I'm a "worthwhile" person. It's that I enjoy myself. Meaning that I enjoy spending time with me, not that I'm having a good time. They're qualitatively different.

Have you made a list of your good qualities lately? It sounds dumb, but it's a good thing to check in with yourself once in a while. Little things that are good about you are just as important as the so-called "big" things. The little things add up. (I have double-jointed thumbs. Not everyone can make their thumbs go backward. I am therefore unique and cool. :) )

Try enjoying what is unique about yourself. "Worthwhile" sounds like an external judgement term. Enjoy you. Don't judge you. You can't do that without making comparisons to other people, and that's pointless.

:hug:

very good things, and I like your point about worthwhile sounding like an external judgment term.

thanks

:hug:

Maybe that's a problem, but it gets me out of bed in the morning.

I'm looking for what the old psych term would be, an internal locus of control

Being in love.

It truly is the only time where I feel like the world is on my side - to have someone who is my emotional and spiritual twin, who "gets" me. When I have that, my overall sense of happiness and being filters out into the rest of my little world - my kids, my friends, my family, my work. It's when I'm at my best.

mine has been just that... however that's not "me", that's depending on someone else in a sense, a bond to make me "whole" or worthwhile, I am needing to learn how to feel worthwhile alone or with someone, and not have it dependent on anyone else. Maybe that is when I find a truly spiritual twin.

we all have to have value and worth

your worth however is something from inside, inherent worth, that's all I'm saying

Many people live lives which are largely centered on nothing more than their own ambition or interest, and often it is these people who have the greatest impact on society. I don't agree with you, however. No life is more valuable than the next, except as it pleases or satisfies the person living it. We're all ants in a huge colony anyway.

I disagree; I can be very practical at times.

Somebody who has not given love, given a part of themselves, to others, has lived an absolutely meaningless life.
Tell me the worth of a man who has not shared love with other people.

I do believe that people are worthwhile in and of themselves and that the more one is feeling that the more they give and visa versa

or something like that.

Dang memory! :P

:)

Hume
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.

:hi:

Fair enough. I do believe that virtually every human being (excepting, perhaps, some sociopaths) has given love and maybe felt it being returned. I'm not sure that gives his/her life meaning, or rather gives meaning to the one who loves. Maybe you're saying, we all affect one another. Also true. Ripples in the pond and all that. Maybe the solitary person I'm imagining doesn't exist, but there are quite a few of us who don't feel particularly important in the grand scheme of things. (Not me, naturally. I am The Goddess.)

goddess

slave spk here

:P

:D

For yeeeears :D

:)

If I do it well, so much the better. If I can't learn how to do something, then I enjoy just learning something. I'll read a history or a biography. In fact, reading womens' biographies has been very important all my adult life, because other peoples' stories help me to view my own path with a bit of objectivity.

Pawpicker, when all else fails, bake bread from scratch, and eat a couple slices loaded with fresh butter. Seriously.

when I come to see you :D

It's very easy, that's why I suggest it, and oddly satisfying! :D

on our knees, on our knees :P

wait that's not how the song goes

:hug:

:loveya:

how ya doin?

I'm doing okay. This is my first Friday alone at the new place and it feels weird. Weirdly warm, that is. How are you? :loveya:

but, he is watching a movie.

Congrats on the new house.

Weirdly warm isn't bad. I've missed talking to you. Left a message on your "this is an answering machine" as if I didn't know that :P

very tired otherwise, was ready to go down and just sign whatever and say the hell with it, I'm done.

Heavy black raincloud over head for at least 11 more days. Looking more and more like we will end up in court for NO DAMNED GOOD REASON except that someone didn't get their shit together on the settlement :grr:

edit for the song

an old relgious song "let us break bread together on our knees"

You have made me laugh. :P

I did listen to your message when I was over at the house - was it yesterday morning? This week has gone so quickly and I have barely slept. I still have the phone over there and am waiting for a hookup over here, which I'm told may take another week. This is about the only way to reach me unless you call on a weekday between 8:45 and 9:30, when I'm at the other place moving stuff. I miss you too!

God, sorry about ending up in court. I'm having questions about what's happening at my end, too, but I'm waiting to have the basic settlement drawn up before I freak out. STBE is heading down to Boston next week to meet his online flame for the first time. I sincerely hope it works for him though I am afraid of how she might influence his decisions about me and the kids, you know?

Say hi to the Big Boy. :)

along with the big boy :P

:rofl:

it will all work out :hug:

;)

I tried to find it before SPK said the title but failed :D

It's perdy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXKbECLHCHI

:hi:

I'll try to listen, but this stolen internet connection is so slow it doesn't do youtube very well. I'm hoping to be officially hooked up within a week or so. :hi:

Thank you v. much, Inchworm!

:hi:

Let us break bread together on our knees, (on our knees)
let us break bread together on our knees. (on our knees)
When I fall on my knees with my face to the rising sun,
O Lord, have mercy on me. (on me)

2. Let us drink wine together on our knees, (on our knees)
let us drink wine together on our knees. (on our knees)
When I fall on my knees with my face to the rising sun,
O Lord, have mercy on me. (on me)


etc.

oh :yoiks:

he is :rofl:

i like to read, especially non fiction and then file away those facts until a game of trivial pursuit happens.

interesting

:D

"How do you know all these answers on this show and on Jeopardy"---Reading!

:D

It really shows that it isn't all about me. There is sooo much to see and discover. I can go sit outside on my porch in the mornings, drinking my version of coffee, and watch the squirrels and birds and be so at peace. Just today I saw this hawk landing in a field and it made me happy. Not sure why either.

thanks

:hug:

how's the little one?

She is trying her best to sit up. She is only 4 months (next week) but she is trying her damnedest. She is also giggling up a storm. Makes me smile like nothing else can. She is one happy baby. And the cutest thing EVER. I think she may be the next Gerber baby. I am not a proud mom at all!! ;)

of course her mama is cute too :D

:pals:

Edit: The one in my heart.

vewy interesting :D

like it

What makes me feel worthwhile?

I think it's my basic self-esteem...I can look inside myself, and for the most part, I like what I see. I have enough self-confidence to know that I am pretty smart most of the time.

Love also makes me feel worthwhile, but that's something that comes from outside me...

But it does reinforce my good feelings about myself.

Good luck, sweetie...

FWIW, I think you're a terrific, intelligent guy with a lot of goodness...

:hug:

I think I'm in same the place as you and have been for a long time.

Since my sister has just given birth to a niece, it may be being an uncle but we'll see

:hug:

Well, nothing then.

I'd probably say my creativity. I'm always making something, whether it's knitting or sewing or cooking or writing...

Sadly, that's also what generally makes me feel worthless as well, since it's a pretty effective waste of time since nothing ever comes of my grand dreams or the things that I make.

To the doctor,to the grocery..

.....the infinite kaleidoscope of replayed bits of life in the mind's eye -- times when someone loved me; times when I was brave; times when I was shockingly successful in matters large and small.

The other day a famous European pianist/professor of music asked me to be his you-tube friend. Ha! I am not worthy of that honor. I'm just a very serious and devoted listener. But it made me realize all kinds of things about how people might perceive me, and I felt a mile high. It was great.

:)

It was before they kicked all the idealism out of me.

;(

I don't believe so much in the supernatural or in divine plans, but if there IS a god and she DOES have a plan for mankind, then my role in that plan is being a schoolteacher. I've got a 180 kids in my role book in a year, and I love each and every one of them as if they were my own. And they know that, and they show me how I've made a difference in their lives. They'll come up to me in June and say, "Mister, at the beginning of the year you said you weren't going to teach English, that you were going to teach about the human condition, and we all thought you were crazy, but now I think you're the best teacher I ever had." It's still the hardest job I can imagine, but it's worth it. At least I can sleep well, which is more than a lot of people get.

After a while one does start to internalize that stuff, but really: internal, external, what does it matter? If you're basically happy with what you're doing, what do you care where it comes from?

:hi:

And it's getting worse with each passing day, if that makes any sense.

I've had, and still have, multiple health issues and have been betrayed by everyone I know. My mom is the only one of them I ever patched things up with. But I'm still here. The way I look at it, there's so many other people ready to knock me down, I'm not going to be one of them.

Are the things that compel me to do things for others. Compassion. Generosity. The ability to put myself in someone else's shoes and try to understand their feelings. I'm a good person, and a worthwhile person because I'm NOT only looking inside myself.

I don't believe everyone has an inherent worth, except as a repository of DNA. I don't believe that narcissistic, inwardly-looking, selfish people have any essential worth. They simply take up space, and don't contribute to anything except their own gratification. Luckily, I also don't believe that there are too many people who are completely narcissistic and self-absorbed - I think most people do have some redeeming worth in their interactions with others.

I let my imagination take me to the far distant past, where I gaze with pride and awe into the eyes of my australopithecine ancestors.

" thank you".

My self-worth has been so tied up in others for so long, I have no idea who I am anymore.

I'm soon going to find out, that's for damn sure.

:hug: