The Wrong Way To Boost Your Self-Worth

A Good Way To End Up Lonely, Powerless, and Bald.
Recently, someone asked me for advice on dealing with aimlessness.
My response, after about a minute of letting the question nestle in, was, “Stop seeking out the wrong channels to boost your self-worth.”
I think we’re all a little guilty of trying to nourish ourselves through people’s opinions and vanity figures like income, job titles, follower count, social impact.
This is a good way to end up lonely, powerless, and bald. Seriously. Bald.
Okay, okay, I got no evidence to back up the hair loss but I feel pretty good about lonely and powerless.
Anyways, relying on external sources to amp up your self-worth has the same effect a drug addict would have with his or her poison of choice. The initial high combs through your entire biological system — it feels good. The clouds are beneath you.
“John D. Supervisor really appreciates my work ethic.”
“I just received a friend request from my favorite writer.”
“Ellen DeGeneres just retweeted my tweet of a Thomas Edison quote. Aww yeah!”
We feel like a somebody. A legitimate player. Life suddenly has weight and depth and definition. This feel-good is trance-like. We wouldn’t trade it for the world.
But, all too often, the energizing effect from these momentary sources of “power” and “affirmation” wears off. We’re back to feeling impotent and accidental.
Until we can disentangle our heart from materialism and vain pursuit, our self-worth will remain shackled to people’s opinions and likes and the Joneses and titles and accolade.
Look, this intergalactic star-ship called life is all about finding that sweet spot where our potential is unspooled just enough to empower someone else to get unspooled as well. And it’s somewhere in the middle of that whole operation where we find our true self-worth.

