Your Worth

 

Here’s an uncomfortable question to sit with for a moment.
​Is there someone in your life who would give their life for you?

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You may have an immediate answer. A name might surface without effort. For some people, several names appear at once. For others, the question lingers longer than expected. You replay relationships. You test assumptions. You wonder whether love, when pushed far enough, actually holds.

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It tells you something about how timidly we treat the idea of worth. We often want proof before we allow ourselves to believe it.

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Here is a different way to think about the question.

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If the measure of your value is whether someone would risk their life for you, then the answer may not depend entirely on how much they value you. There are people who have committed themselves to the protection of human life itself. Firefighters routinely enter environments designed to kill them in order to save strangers. Police officers place themselves in harm’s way for people they have never met and will never know. Soldiers accept risk on behalf of lives that will never know their names.

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That reality is easy to dismiss with a familiar objection.
.....That’s their job.

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That's my point.

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These individuals are not acting out of personal attachment to you. They are acting out of a belief that a human life carries intrinsic value. They have accepted that belief to such a degree that they have structured their lives around it, trained for it, and agreed to suffer for it if required.

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This reframes the original question. We usually think sacrifice requires love. Sometimes it does. Sometimes love alone is not enough. There are people who love deeply and still lack the courage to act when the cost becomes real. There are also people who act decisively not because they know you, but because they believe your life is valuable even without knowing you.

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Courage and love are not the same thing, but I will say. 
​Sustained courage is often fueled by love and deep love often demands courage to endure.

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That realization leads to a conclusion. Your life carries value even before anyone recognizes it. Even before you recognize it yourself.

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That can be difficult to accept. Many of us measure worth through comparison. We look sideways instead of inward. We wait for affirmation. We assume value must be proven through output, approval, or performance. Over time, this conditions us to believe that confidence is something granted externally rather than built internally.

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This raises a harder question.
​Why do some people believe in themselves while others do not?

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I do not think the answer is personality, talent, or even upbringing alone. I think confidence is governed. It rises or erodes based on a few controllable categories that most people rarely examine directly.

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I created a simple acronym to help with this. It is not exhaustive, but it is practical. It highlights where confidence is being undermined and where it can be rebuilt.

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Honesty​
This starts with yourself. Trust is foundational in every relationship, including the one you have with your own mind. If you consistently avoid hard truths, minimize your role in outcomes, or reshape narratives to protect your ego, you slowly teach yourself that your internal voice cannot be trusted. Once trust erodes, worth follows. It is difficult to value someone you do not believe.

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Ownership​
Responsibility is often framed as a burden. In reality, it is the gateway to agency. When you own your decisions without outsourcing blame, you regain control over direction. Ownership gives shape to identity. Identity stabilizes confidence. When you know what you stand for, you know who you are.

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Limits​
Boundaries are not restrictions. They are declarations of value. Time, energy, and values are finite resources. When they are given indiscriminately to people or environments that do not respect them, the result is predictable erosion. You begin to see yourself through the lens of those who misuse what you offer. Over time, that lens becomes internalized. Clear limits protect not only your schedule, but your self perception.

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Direction​
Without a sense of direction, confidence becomes fragile. Purpose gives resistance to chaos. It fills the vacuum that otherwise demands distraction. Without purpose there is a gigantic hole in our heart. It will always aggressively fight to be filled and often without purpose it will be filled with negative things. Purpose is the compass of life. 

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These categories are not abstract ideas. Each one can be evaluated honestly. Each one can be strengthened deliberately.

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Take a look at these and ask yourself how well you govern these categories in your life. If you find gaps, that is not an indictment. It is a map. Confidence rarely collapses all at once. It leaks. Identifying the leak is the first act of repair to establish your worth in your own eyes. 

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I believe God created you, and I believe that carries meaning beyond circumstance. That belief alone reshapes how I understand worth. You may not share that view. Even without it, the evidence remains that human life is treated as valuable by those willing to risk everything to protect it.

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Today’s Forced Challenge: I want you to FORCE yourself to attack at least one of these challenges:

1. Examine the Question: Sit with this question for five uninterrupted minutes. Is there someone who would give their life for you? Write the most honest answer you have without qualifying or explaining it.
    

2. Reverse the Lens: Ask yourself this directly. Is there someone you would be willing to give your life for? Write down who, and why.
    

3. Define Yourself: Write one sentence that describes who you are when you are living with honesty, ownership, limits, and direction aligned.
    

4. Practice Stewardship: Make one decision this week that treats your life as something valuable to be cared for, not something to be spent casually.
    

5. Seek Perspective: Have a real conversation with someone you trust and ask them why they value you. Listen without correcting, defending, or minimizing.

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If others are willing to place that value on a life they do not know, then the question becomes unavoidable.
​How are you governing the value of your own?

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Confidence is not arrogance. It is stewardship. It is the daily practice of managing honesty, ownership, limits, and direction with intention. When those are neglected, worth becomes fragile. When they are governed well, belief follows naturally.

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“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
​- Carl Jung