A portrait of me taken by a friend with a Game Boy Camera. Thanks Danny 📸Over the past year or so I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about self-worth. How so many of my anxieties and fears stem from the idea that I need to earn everything I am given. Do I deserve my life, or is it the result of privilege, being the recipient of pity or unconditional kindness, or simply dumb luck? Do I deserve my position in life, or have I just duped everyone into believing I am more capable, more talented, more likable than I actually am?
I enjoy making things. Being creative is one of the most consistent and fundamental sources of joy and satisfaction in my life. I’ve known for a while now that being creative is a form of self-care for me. Writing, making art, learning through doing: they all allow me to break down the noise in my head and build it back up into understanding, or direct it as energy towards a goal, or find purpose in existence. After being creative for a while I feel similarly to how I am at the end of a workout: a little tired, but a good kind of tired. Satisfied, confident, ready to tackle whatever is next. At its best, creativity is cathartic, surprising, and fun.
But the other aspect of creativity that’s been present throughout my life, is the unyielding self-criticism that accompanies it. Maybe I begin a project driven by curiosity or excitement, only for that momentum to be halted when I instinctively pump the brakes.
“Should I really be spending my time doing this? Aren’t there better things I could be doing with my time, things that benefit society?”
“Aren’t there other people who could do this better than I can? Other people who deserve a spotlight more than I do, deserve to be heard and seen?”
“Do I really possess the arrogance to believe that what I make could be anything more than noise? What could I create that would deserve to occupy space in people’s minds and hearts, take up their precious time and attention?”
“Who am I to decide what is good and true? Who am I to deserve anything?”
My creative projects usually end one of two ways: I give up on them before I’ve really started, or I give up on them after spending ages agonizing over them, putting in tons of work but never feeling that it satisfies my perfectionistic standards. Creativity becomes an exercise in futility more than anything else. And that constant, never-ending cycle of excitement → momentum → self-doubt → giving up is exhausting.
This past year I’ve done a lot of journaling, and in the end I’ve probably written more in the last twelve months than I had in the previous twenty-seven years. None of it will ever be read by anyone else, just me and whatever therapists I might decide to share it with. But it still brings me some of that satisfaction, that release, that pride that being creative usually does. So why do I still feel the need to put my work out into the world? Is it self-importance, or arrogance? Am I just vain?
Something I’ve learned about myself in recent months is how much of my self-worth I try to find outside me. I look to external sources for validation: good grades, praise, affirmation. None of these things are inherently unhealthy to want. But when that’s the only thing that gives you any sense of value for yourself, it becomes a toxic trait. Because now, if I’m not actively being affirmed, I am worthless. If I’m not being reassured that I have value, I must have none. There is no safe moment inside my own head except for the ones when somebody else is telling me I did a good job.
Where this attitude and the accompanying desperate desire for affirmation comes from is, predictably, too big a topic to unpack here, at least for today. But the thesis of it all comes down to, “I don’t know how to treat myself as inherently valuable.” And so everything must be earned.
Part of my desire to put my work out into the world has been, and will likely always partly be, wanting affirmation. But I’m starting to wonder if maybe the more important reason, the one I should be focusing on, is to assert that I have value regardless. That my words and ideas are worth something, even if they are far from the best or are lacking in originality or craftsmanship. My words are allowed to exist because I am allowed to exist. I have that right. My actions don’t determine my worth, as much as it feels like it sometimes.
For the better part of a year, I’ve been working on a blog post about my personal experiences with health and weight, and all that I’ve learned in the process of losing 80 pounds over the last two years. I’m using it to try and sum up a lifetime of grievances, frustrations, revelations, and wisdom, and I also want it to be good. Right now it sits at about 11,000 words, and to me it feels unruly, disjointed, and lacking in focus. But I think it also has a lot of good ideas, and may be the best thing I’ve written so far. That thought makes me both proud and frightened — if this absolute mess is the best I can do, what if it’s the best I’ll ever do? What if it’s not good enough? What if I put it out into the world and nobody likes it or better writers read it and all they see is a wannabe, a try-hard with no real skill?
Truth be told, I don’t know the answers to any of these questions. Maybe it won’t be great. Maybe it will be an unmitigated disaster (although I really hope not). But that’s okay. And I don’t think I’ve ever given myself the grace to just be okay. To accept that I might make something bad, and that that doesn’t mean I am bad.
I wrote this blog post in a day. I wanted to just break the seal on this new blog of mine, to push through the barrier I’ve created for myself that says “must be within spitting distance of perfect to enter.” I want to be able to put something out in the world that I know isn’t perfect, because then that means I can exist in the world without being perfect. It is not a show of arrogance just to exist. And this is my reminder to myself — no one gets to decide whether I’m worthy of existing, except me. The question isn’t, “Am I worthy?” It’s, “I am worthy — now what do I want to do with it?”