Personal Value is Not Higher Math
July 7, 2008
One point for being nice. . . two points for being a good spouse. . . three points for not yelling at the kids (when they really deserved it). . .four points for being successful (more money, clients, perks equals more points). . . five points because I have friends (although not enough to warrant more points). . . . and the math goes on. Most of us play this game when we are trying to determine our personal value or self-worth, especially when we are interacting with someone who we think has more “points.”
I have long known that I’m missing the math gene — it’s no secret. My first “D” ever was in Geometry, and I had to stay after school most days to get through algebra II. In eleventh grade I dropped trigonometry after two weeks because my brain physically hurt during class. (Let’s face it, I was just taking it to impress a guy anyway). So you might think that since math causes me to make funny faces as I compute long addition problems that I’d have no problems ignoring the “value added math” mentioned above. WRONG!
I suffer from the same, “I might not measure up to this superior being,” issue as do so many others I know. My parents did all the right things. I remember my father telling me frequently that I was better than “those other kids,” that I could do anything I set my mind to. . . I heard him, but I didn’t believe him. I could blame it on being teased, or the 5th grade English teacher who refused to read any of my creative writing stories because they weren’t good enough. But the truth is, it was the quiet voice in my head that had more impact on me than anything said to me, positive or negative. Kids are highly astute, and they look around and measure themselves against their peers daily. They know who gets in trouble more, they know who gets the “A’s” on all of their tests, they know who is getting concert tickets, parties and high-end electronics. In actuality, most people use this kind of information to judge themselves.
I was taking part in a webinar last week lead by a fabulous woman named Christine Comaford-Lynch (www.rulesforrenegades.com). She is an amazing success story and her webinar on networking was highly enlightening. During the lecture she addressed self-worth and mentioned that before she meets with someone who might cause her to decrease her value, she takes a few moments to remember that every person has exactly one unit of self worth. Just one, no more, no less. This was a profound way to observe personal value. It makes the mental math project obsolete. One, one unit is all any human gets. My unit might look different from someone else’s, but we each only possess one unit of self worth.
With the idea that we all get one unit it becomes easy to find common ground with anyone. Whether it’s a client, spouse, friend or even celebrity encounter, we no longer need to try and measure up to perceived expectations.
How does the idea of one unit of self worth make you feel? Is it empowering or debilitating? I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Life is Too Short for Yard Sales!
June 30, 2008
A few months ago my daughter and a friend decided that they NEEDED to have a yard sale. It took 2 months to lock in a date on the calendar that worked for both families. During that two months I began losing my parking spot in the garage as more and more bags of stuff arrived from both homes (mostly mine I’ll confess). As each bag accumulated and boxes filled, I began to regret my agreeing to this little event. I simply wanted to call ARC and have them haul it all away. The impetus for the kids? They just wanted to make a few extra dollars. They even devised a plan whereby anything I had could be sold under their guidance for a small percentage of the sale price. I reminded them that 90% of what they were selling had been paid for by a parent, but agreed to their terms noting that they would get my bill for storage space and a rental fee for using my driveway as a selling location. Negotiations ceased immediately.
I must digress here for a moment and admit that there was a time when I took great pleasure in rising at 6am to haul my ”treasures” to a designated location where I would sell them for pennies on the dollar of the original purchase price.
I have come to the realization, however, that life is too short for me to stand in my driveway hawking my unwanted household items, and that I periodically consider selling off family members for $2 during the course of a 4-hour yard sale. . .well, let’s just say this marked the last yard sale my family will do. In preparation for this event, I watched my children try to value their belongings and realized that as they priced each item they were valuing the emotional happiness (or lack there of) that each item instilled. A beloved stuffie was way over priced at $7 while a less loved book went for 25 cents. Then when buyers arrive to haggle over items, insignificant items were sold for almost nothing while treasured but no longer wanted items were only released at top dollar. As I observed my husband haggling over a bicycle that no longer fit our children, and it’s presence was preventing the new bikes from being stored properly, it really sank in. We are attached emotinoally to the items in our possession and it is hard to release them without some perceived value. In the end, we gave the bicycle away, so the difference between the $10 we were asking and the $5 being offered was mute. But the process of haggling gave my husband an opportunity to bring his value forward, granted at the expense of time and energy that likely could have been better spent. It was difficult to watch the kids (so excited that they could make a few dollars) as cars pulled up, determined our “stuff” not worth their time and then pull away. It’s a form of rejection really, and they internalized that. In the end, I’ll take the tax write off.
Fours hours later, hot, slightly cranky and exhausted, the entire family netted only $100 and we still had to haul all of the unsold “treasures” back into the garage. Each person essentially made $6 and hour (if you don’t include the time it took to sort, price and display the items). I would have rather spent the morning enjoying a cup of coffee, listening to the kids plan their day, doing a load of laundry and perhaps even heading to lunch with the family. In an effort to value ourselves through our possessions we lost valuable time. Life is too short to spend it haggling with strangers over the inherent worth of my used coffee maker (an item that I would have surely died without and only released when I had an upgraded model). This process made me stop and wonder what else I engage in with the intention of proving or validating my value. I think there have been many opportunities in my life for me to know my worth or expect someone else to dictate to me my value. I believe that no one else will ever be able to accurately determine my value, and when I decide my worth and don’t expect validation life feels fuller, more joyful and more free.
Now, I am a die-hard bargain shopper and really grateful that others are willing to yard sale, online and in their driveways, but I am the person who pays asking price because I know that the value goes beyond the $5 you’re getting for grandma’s lamp. If you too have come to realize that your time and energy is worth more than the attachment you have to your things but have items that you’d like to pass along, try www.freecycle.org. Everyone in this community sees their items as having value and the reward is a freecycler who picks up your sofa and tells you it’s going to a mom who just moved out of an abusive relationship, or a child’s first apartment or is just being loved by someone new. Now that creates a feeling of self-worth that cannot be duplicated on a colored sticker with a dollar sign.
Care to share your yard sale successes, failures or realizations? We’d love to hear about how the process has affected you!
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