Throughout the movie The Guardian Ashton Kutcher badgered Kevin Kostner for his ‘number’—indicating the number of lives he saved. In their world, the more lives you saved the more worthy you were.
At the end, Kostner disappointed Kutcher when he finally revealed his number: 18 (or thereabouts). Kutcher was astounded at Kostner, a celebrity rescue swimmer and he had only rescued 18? Kutcher had spent his entire movie proving his self worth by setting time records and he intended to be the rescue swimmer with the most saved lives. Then Kostner clarified what his number meant. It was the number of lives he lost. The only number which mattered to him.
There are times in my life where I’ve felt pure anger at others for doubting my worth. The most traumatic of which started when I was 16 and I detailed to a friend how I wanted to start a business. She thought it was ridiculous. I fought back with words and from the mental stress of the whole thing a hole burst in my right retina which led to laser surgery and impaired vision in my right eye.
I’ll show you! You’ll be sorry you doubted me! TO hell with you, the best revenge is living a wonderful life you’ll never know!
Or something to that effect. Then I unleash a flurry of activity. I get driven and a work like a demon.
And then I stop…
I usually succumbed to haplessness, I seemed unfocused and unambitious. I felt it too. It’s in part because after each one of these incidences I felt I’d lost a part of myself I never wanted to lose, kindess, a soft heart, a willingness to be there for someone even when it’s inconvenient for me.
The downside of devoting myself to proving self-worth is I would have to agree to do things which others think are worthy, not what I think is worthy. This easily leads to a life path where I’m 40 years old, established, others respect me, and I’ll find I have no interest in what I do. Everything I have done would have been things which others thought were worthy.
Perhaps everyone would benefit from having a number of some sort. I can think of two numbers for me to use to demonstrate my self worth to myself.
- Making things — I’m always happy when I write something new, create a website, or come up with a new dish. This number indicates my engagement with life.
- Giving others a lift — whether it’s through things I made, lending an empathic ear, or helping out around the house. This number indicates how well I’m making the world a better place to live for others and makes me feel good too.
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