I'm curious.  Perhaps this is more of a male hangup, but
how many of you out there base your self worth on
what you can accomplish?  That is, when you think of
what makes you a good person, do you think of how
much money you make, how good a job you do, or perhaps
even your performance in some sort of sport?  By
all reports this isn't too healthy and very often leads
to people cashing in their chips very shortly after 
retirement.  So do I see any hands raised?  I think
that mine might be inching up.

13 responses total.

I am worth only what i can redeem at the bottle return

Aw, come on.  If you reach down behind the cushions in the
couch, you can usually come up with some extra change to
add to the total.  (It works for me.)

But seriously folks, I've known men who spent the majority of their lifes
aspiring and striving to realize some dream only to have it taken from them.
There isn't anything in this life you can't lose.  That doesn't mean you 
shouldn't strive, just realize the impermanence of it all.  In keeping with
the title of this cf, getting it is ok i guess, as long as you don't
become attached to it.  Of course this attitude would probably make it easier
to lose it in the first place.

re #0: I suppose it depends on what you mean by accomplishment. I
consider learning something an accomplishment.  I consider bicycling to
Dundee and back an accomplishment.  I consider making someone smile an
accomplishment.  I accomplish lots of things so my sense of self-worth
is pretty good.

I may not have accomplished as much as others, but I live by these
words from the Desiderata:

"If you compare yourself with other, you may become vain or bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself."

Dan, I like the quote.  I hadn't heard it before.  There's a lot
of truth in it.  I can't say as I live by it, but it is something
to which I can aspire.

Maybe enjoying the process of the accomplishment is the key.
Perhaps just that word "enjoying" is the thing.  Many times in my life
I've done a thing and done it better than anyone competing against
me.  That bad part is that I didn't enjoy doing it.  The thing that
I was after was (in the words of Thomas A. Edision) "...just getting
ahead of the other fellow".  Maybe this is great in business or
in the world of technical endeavor, but you come to a point in
your life (at least I have) when you realize that you've been wasting
time on hollow victories.  However, realizing it and correcting the
habits of a good portion of your life are two different things.

I definitely came from a background where accomplishment was
what you describe above.  Since then I have come to see that
what was important in the accomplishment was a sense of
competition and an unquestioning acceptance of values.

There are people who may well consider me a shadow of the
person I could have been.  At a few times in my life I
chose to not be competitive and to not accomplish certain
things that others considered important.  From their
world-view, I haven't accomplished much.  From my own
world-view, I'm doing fine.

I've watched several people go through life seeking a 
certain status or level of income.  It seemed to me that
they missed a certain type of awareness and/or enjoyment.
Since then, I have made sure that I make friends who
don't seem to be driven to accomplishment.  That's one
of the nicer things I have done.

When you're not driven, you do have a lot of time for other
things (like enjoying life).  The thing that brought me
around was running into someone else who was even worse
about it than I was.  They say that the things that
irritate you most in others are really those things
things about yourself that you don't like.  There's
a lot of truth in this.  Humankind being what it is,
you can usually find someone to serve as a mirror.
The reflection isn't accurate and many traits that
you have will be magnified out of proportion.  (They're
easier to spot this way.)

Re #4:  I like the quote, too, and I have done a good job of following
it.  At least compared to other people I know.

Seriously, though, I've heard that bit in #0 about judging your self-worth
by others being unhealthy, but I always wonder what else there is, if not
your accomplishments?  If you don't feel that it's important to do anything,
if you value yourself just as much if you work 40 works a week after eight
years of college as you do dropping out of high school and living in a box
behind Meijer's, why bother with the first route, since the second one is
much easier (albeit more painful, perhaps, in the long run)?

I can feel good about accomplishments and enjoy mastery but if those
things become the sole criteria for measuring my worth as a human
being then I probably end up whith an anxiety disorder or chronic 
depression. At some level it is important to feel I'm acceptable
and of worth just being. This is tough for me to do.
Although the box behind Meijers would be a cheap way to go.

I'm not saying your accomplishments should be your sole criteria for
measuring worth.  But they can certainly be one criteria.  The joke
of the liberal in the kitchen, who whenever any celebrity's monetary
value is mentioned, quips, "yeah, but are they *happy*?" is relevant
here.  Some aren't:  Kurt Cobain, for instance.  But some certainly are.
One has ethics, or should have ethics, and adherence to these ethics 
may certainly also be a way of measuring self-worth (perhaps should be the
focal measuring stick).  But accomplishemnts made within one's personal
ethical framework -- certainly those are valid considerations as well?
The ulcers and stress headaches come from not being true to yourself
(assuming, of course, that you're not a workaholic).

I have a much more simplistic way of looking at it. Basically, if you go
about your life, doing precisely what you want, for the sake of your own
enjoyment, you'll have no problems. Mind you, quite often people mistake
what they want to do, with what others seem to want them to do. There is
a huge difference. :) Then, there are people who do things, which they think
they want to do, but in fact they are doing it in relation to what others
seem to want of them. For example, doing the opposite (rebels!). People
follow the led of others. People tie their self-worth in with others.
I think self-worth is generated from doing precisely what you want.
It's not the accomplishment itself that gives you any enjoy, it's the *doing*
it. I have not had that much experience around, but every single thing I have
ever done that could be considered an accomplishment, in the end when
it was done, I didn't have sone speck of enjoyment from the end. I was
relieved yes, that it was over, and I could relax contently as I knew I
earned it. All enjoyment came from the activity. Your own activity, cannot
be related to others (either, you do as best you can, and you do good, or
not). Your self-worth, is absolute to yourself, and not relative to anyone
else.

:). What do I know? I'm not sure. That's for you to judge, not me.

Mark, that makes sense to me.

Good, because it makes sense to me as well. I'm still new here, so
I'm just testing out this place and taking it easy in the beginning. :)

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