One of my reoccurring struggles is wondering what I am good for. It often starts with struggling to find new writing work, but the idea quickly tips over into wondering about my worth as a whole.
It's hard to fight against, this wondering about worth. I can see that other people are valuable by what they do and who they are, but I don't see myself as being very valuable.
I had a thought that draws me up short in regard to not believing in my worth. A small exercise in logic, if you will.
Am I the only valueless person in the world? Hardly likely. Why would I be special in that regard?
If I'm not the only one, then there are more valueless people around me. More than a few. Maybe as many as half. Maybe more.
If that is true, then I know other valueless people. They are represented among my kind readers, among my own family and friends. Who are they?
I review names in my head. I imagine faces, dear faces and voices, all of the beautiful things my people are doing and are capable of. If I am of no value, then some of these dear people are too.
This is a logical outcome of my assumption that I am valueless. I need to accept that other people, including some of the people I love most dearly are also valueless ... or I need to conclude the assumption is untrue.
Maybe the value I see in the people I know lives in every single person. Which means it lives in me too.
Which means I am not worthless.
Which means I have something to offer.
Which means there are skills and ideas in me which are worth working on and working toward.
I can't have it both ways. If I devalue myself, then I must logically devalue other people -- and I probably am already, in ways I'm not aware of.
But if I want to value other people, every other person, then I have to also acknowledge value in myself. Whether or not I can see it clearly and whether or not I am able to connect to it emotionally. No matter what I feel, truth goes on being true.
I'm not valueless.