From my personal experience, I know a lot of people who have worked hard throughout their life. Being toppers in their fields, acing their jobs, being part of the sports team. Yes, all this definitely gives a sense of achievement and plays an important role in motivating a person to do better, but to say that it defines the whole existence of a person or how much a person is worth is an overstatement. But isn’t the importance of materialistic success taught to us right from when we were kids?
‘If you score 95% plus, we’ll take you to the amusement park’ or ‘If the class highest in maths was 99 then why did you perform so bad? 91 is not good enough for us’. We have been taught to compare and measure our achievements from the very beginning. But even then, how come CEOs and other successful people commit suicide or say they are depressed. Aren’t they supposed to be at the top of the world, having won the rat race and making a name for oneself?
The problem lies in the fact that we think if we are productive and successful, we’ll be happy. And that there is some imaginary day in our future when we’ll have a smooth life. But no matter how much you accomplish, there’s always a feeling of ‘what next?’. This very fact proves that good marks, a good job or making the best use of your vacations don’t indicate your self-worth. These are resources which just help in making a life a bit comfortable. But life can be unpredictable- no one was expecting COVID19 to ruin their all their plans for 2020.
Nowadays, we worry too much to deliver our best self, often forgetting that it’s not just the destination that matters. It’s the whole journey which shapes and defines us. What we want to achieve or experience in life and how you chose to do that, matters more than what the society expects us to be. You can be a yogi living a simplistic, happy life in the ranges of Himalayas or even the Director of some tech giant, working with the sole goal of increasing the company’s profits at the expense of your own health.
Focusing on doing what you want in life is way more important than what you should have accomplished in life relative to the peers of your age. Just like your 10th class marks don’t matter anymore, your competition with others is not even going to be relevant in the bigger picture of your life. Compete with your best version instead and surround yourself with supportive friends and family who understand you even in the worst of times. But most importantly, be that person who will be there for you specially in your lows, when going on feels tough.
Your value as a human being is worth way too much to be quantified in terms of absolute materialistic measures. You can just try to be the better version of yourself, that is loved by you and the ones that matter to you. Afterall, self-worth is relative and it’s how you spend your life that matters the most.
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