How do you measure a persons worth?

[worrywort]

I don't mean worth in the sense of basic human rights that should be equal to all people. I mean more like the difference between a Mother Theresa and a Hitler. What makes one person more worthy/more valuable/better than another? What scales and standards do you use to measure this?

Where do you get your sense of self worth from? Should it be from social comparisons, or should it be something more innate or personal? i.e. if you're a big fish in a small pond you're probably gonna feel pretty good about yourself, but what if you're the small fish in a big pond? Does that mean you should feel bad about yourself? Unworthy, and worse than others?

I've been thinking maybe a persons self worth should be measured on their improvement rate throughout their lives, rather than on social comparisons. For example, person A is a dignified gentleman; polite, kind and gracious, while person B is a disfunctional young man; hateful, disrespectful and arrogant. We'd naturally consider person A to be the "better" man. But what if person A had come from an incredibly privaleged upbringing and the life he now lives is actually far behind what he could've become, while person B came from a massively under privaleged upbringing and the life he's living now is infact a vast improvement to where people expected him to end up. Wouldn't this make person B the worthier of the two?

I don't know. These are just some thoughts I've been thinking recently and I'd be curious to hear people's opinions. Maybe you don't think there should be any scales at all?! Who knows!

 

[EscapeArtist]

Currently my self worth depends on how much I trust myself.

I used to compare myself socially, or by intelligence, by projects I've completed, by weight, by emotional intelligence, by maturity....

No. Comparing yourself has nothing to do with external factors. If you can trust yourself... you have everything you need to love yourself. If you can love yourself... enough to chase happiness, you are worthy.

 

[kihira]

I don't think we can measure the worth of others, we wouldn't know all the facts to be able to do so fairly. Unknown to us, person A may poison small birds, whilst person B may rescue drowning kittens. Or vice versa.

Our own self worth can perhaps be measured by our self-awareness. In fact a person with little self-awareness may measure themselves by their possessions instead.

 

[Paahi]

I try not to measure.

 

[EscapeArtist]

"Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are"-Emerson
I think this pretty much depicts it. How you "rate" people depends too much on how each person sees themselves, their good qualities and bad qualities, and their world. I think there are way too many factors here. I don't rate. (I originally read this question wrong)

 

[Rembrandt Broam]

I measure a person's worth based on how they behave towards others. On that basis, I don't have low self-worth, as I think I am basically a good person, who is considerate of others, and who helps others where and when I can. I'm not claiming to be a saint of course - I can be selfish just like everyone else - but I don't live my life by a mantra of "me, me, me!".

Self-esteem is a different issue. I base that on how I think others perceive me. The problem there is that I believe a lot of people judge the self-worth of others based on trivial or superficial criteria. I don't measure up to a lot of those criteria, so I believe others judge me as lacking, hence I have much lower self-esteem than self-worth.

Not sure if that makes any sense to anyone but me.

 

[Lea]

I think it´s not possible for us humans to objectively evaluate someone´s "worth". Only God can do it because he knows everybody to the depth. With us people a large part plays also sympathy, antipathy and subjective feelings we have about other people. I somehow detest classifying people like this, who is worse, who is better.. But is true that I hate dishonesty, lies, violence etc., and this is the most important criterium for me to classify someone as a bad person. Everybody has a chance to get better though and if we make scales, it sounds too definitive.. No human is a finished product, we still change and evolve.

 

[Feathers]

Some books on CBT write long chapters or passages on how it's impossible to measure this And I mostly agree...
They say it's psychologically healthier to just accept we're all unique, on unique life paths...

Even a terrible person can do something really really good, and even a wonderful person can do something silly or unwise... (or downright horrible, at times...) There's lots of evidence in history or literature (or movies ) about this...

 

[worrywort]

Thanks for your replies. Yea I think I agree with you all, that we really can't judge another persons worth objectively because we'll never know what that person has experienced in their life. We also can never know the true scale or standard that tells us which people are worthier than others. We can only have our opinions of what that standard is.

I guess the real question I wanted to ask was, how do you measure your own worth? Basically I want to be able to walk into a room with my head held high, but often I can't. Usually this is due to social comparisons that I make. I'll be in a room of people that I view as all "better" than me....better careers, richer, better love lives, more confident etc etc....and one way that makes me feel better is to think of things that I'm better at than them.....i.e. that person smokes, I dont...1-0 bob!....that persons fat and unhealthy, I'm not....2-0 bob!.....[I'm being vulnerably honest here btw, so please don't pounce ::] but I don't like to do this. This feels wrong to me. I want to find another way to feel worthy. I feel like there are other ways to feel worthy, but making social comparisons seems to be my instinctive primal way that I feel I should fight against.

So what do you think?

One way that sometimes works is if I just focus on my own journey and think of all the personal achievements I've made, but there's two problems with this. Firstly, it's really hard to hear this voice compared to the voice of social comparisons that seems to take over so easily. I.e. I tell myself that I'm doing well, just focus on my own path, but sometimes the world seems to be screaming at me that I'm a worthless loser!...and secondly, often I fall below even my own standards.

Another possible way is that maybe our worth really is something more akin to our innate human rights that are equal to everybody. Like a £50 note. No matter how crumpled and dirty and thrown around it gets, it's still worth the same as a nice clean crisp new £50 note. I found this passage that I think captures this idea really well.

 

[Lea]

WW you're intelligent (deep thinker) like hell, but (or maybe that's why) you make it far too complicated. Self worth or self esteem is never a matter of rational thinking or reasons, it's a matter of what you've drunk or taken (if you don't have it inborn). I read that the person's self esteem is directly related to the level of serotonine in their brain.

 

[worrywort]

WW you're intelligent (deep thinker) like hell, but (or maybe that's why) you make it far too complicated. Self worth or self esteem is never a matter of rational thinking or reasons, it's a matter of what you've drunk or taken (if you don't have it inborn). I read that the person's self esteem is directly related to the level of serotonine in their brain.

haha! yea, you might be right there! To be honest my thoughts on all this stuff are still pretty confused....I think I may be muddling several different issues together; self worth, self esteem, guilt, and probably more! But I definitely feel there's something about this issue that doesn't feel quite right and I want to explore it and try to figure it out. It's the social comparisons we make that I don't like....I think I also want to be ok with my weaknesses and flaws. The parts of me that others look down upon. It makes me feel very small when other people look down upon me due to my weaknesses and flaws, but I don't think that's fair. In social situations, for example, often I suspect I've exerted a lot more mental and emotional energy just showing up, whereas for others socialising seems to re-energise them! So surely I'm the one who should feel more pride in this situation....but usually it's the other way around. So I guess I want to try to find a way of feeling proud of myself, that doesn't depend on making these social comparisons.....but I dunno.....something still doesn't feel right....I think it goes even deeper than that......hmmm.....I'll keep thinking!


p.s. to the person who deleted their post, thank you for replying! Your thoughts were really helpful. It's a shame you deleted them actually, I would've liked to have re-read them!

 

[Dronee]

Hey worrywort! I'll give my one cent on this. I think a person's own worth (to me) is how much he has stuck to doing the right thing. I DON'T believe in relative morality. To a small extent, yes, some things and standards differ.

But in practical terms... we all know what is right and what is wrong once we reach adulthood. Each person's understanding and maturity differs. So I'd say the function is how much maturity and knowledge a person has... and how much the person can stick to doing the right thing. So... differentiating the shades of gray and then acting on them.

Hmm... you've read Flowers for Algernnon?

The genius Charlie has the artist eyes to pick the shades of grey.. but he often could not do the right thing... The naive charlie was naive, but was pure of heart... A person who has the foresight and maturity... AND the willingness and conviction to pursue the difficult moral path. That's the highest worth to me. I'm not talking about obviously altruistic acts either.. For example, to me, procrastinating isn't right. It's a violation of one's own time. Smoking, alcoholism...etc... violates your own body. In other words, the morality I'm talking about is broader.

Lol... sorry, not explaining well. Long day.