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You Have Value
First of all, it’s important to discuss a common misconception about what it is to “matter”. Many people think you have to be famous or have discovered a new species to matter. This is simply untrue. I guess the thought is that many people must know who you are before you can “matter” to anyone.
Think about a person you know that really matters to you. That person probably isn’t famous. But they still matter to you, don’t they? Think about a genuine person who calls you their friend. I’m not sure about you, but the people I call my friends matter to me. So let’s say you do, in fact, matter to the person who calls you their friend. So there are no minimum requirements for mattering. You simply matter.
Knowing you matter may not be enough for some people. It’s important to take a look at our self-confidence as human beings. Firstly, you need to know that self-confidence is simply a concept of thought humans created to help deal with their process of thinking.
As I mentioned in another article called “Why You Should Care for Your Fellow Human”, animals live very simple lives because they don’t worry about things the way you do. I mean, you’ve never seen a pet have a midlife crisis, have you? You can probably see where I’m going with this.
When I feel down about myself I remember that my bad thoughts are simply my brain planting seeds that I’ve sown. True story: I’ve gotten over sadness by telling myself that I was happy. The trick isn’t much of a secret and it surely isn’t a hard concept to grasp.
It’s truly all about your mindset. Sure, your emotions may feel like they are in control of you. But, objectively, I have to tell you that you are the one in control. Even when it comes to mental illness such as depression. In my experience, I’ve always allowed myself to be controlled by sad thoughts. Now, I let them exist and deal with my life as if nothing ever happened.
I am NOT A DOCTOR and am in no way telling you to go off your psych meds or anything. If your doctor thinks you need meds, then I would listen to the person with the degree, not a random person on the internet.
I’m simply saying that the bad thoughts and other features that come with mental illness are not what hurts you. You are the one that hurts you. The bad thoughts don’t grow appendages and try to stab you like Michael Myers. Well… mine never did, I’m not sure about yours. Again, I’m just a random person on the internet.
I say all that to say this: You may feel as though you don’t matter and your self-confidence may be lower than hell. I’m here to tell you that there is no amount of compliments people can give you if, at the end of the day, you don’t feel confident in yourself.
My advice to you is just to do it. Just pretend to be confident until you truly become confident. It won’t hurt or cost you anything. You would just be doing something other than calling yourself bad names or other hurtful things. It’s just exchanging bad thoughts for good thoughts. So try it out and let the community know how it worked out for you.
You Actually Contribute to the World
This isn’t an overstatement. You can be in any position in the world and still be contributing something to the world. Your potential is great whether you’re a broke child or a CEO. If you’re a broke child, you’re mostly the reason your parents are alive (the genuine love between parent and child is unexplainable and meaningful in every way). If you’re a CEO, you’re in charge of keeping the company successful as well as employees paid.
You could separate yourself from human beings altogether and still matter. That is if you happen to have a pet in this case. If you do, then you’re their main source of food and love. That may be trivial to some, but to the pet it’s everything.
I’m saying these things so you don’t go through life taking everything so seriously. You don’t have to have the hearts of millions of people. You don’t even have to have the heart of one if you don’t want to. Your self-confidence and self-worth are completely decided by how you choose to look at the value of your own life. Hopefully, the points I made before are enough to get you thinking in the right direction.
You also have to think about the things you can do. Whatever talents you have, there’s someone who wants so badly to be able to do what you can. I’m not saying this to encourage envy, though. It’s just to show you that you are worthy. And if I haven’t made it clear enough already I’ll say it again, you are VERY worthy.
You Doubt Yourself-- Stop That
Like I said before, I can’t be the one to prove that you matter. That mindset is completely up to you. If you continue to choose to allow bad thoughts to control you then that will be that. The bad thoughts will be in control and that’ll be that. I want you to know that that is okay. Your feelings are always valid and it’s okay to ignore the fact that you are in control sometimes.
I want to emphasize SOMETIMES here because you are ultimately in control of how you feel at the end of the day. And I encourage you to take the necessary steps to prove that control to yourself. Some people may not be ready for that though, and those people will still matter at the end of the day.
If you want to take a slight change in life and start to empower yourself, I recommend that you start slowly. You don’t have to tell yourself you’re amazing if you don’t feel that way (...yet). You can start off by ignoring the bad thoughts like I did. You have to remember that they aren’t real-life threats, they only feel like they are.
Once you take control that way everything else falls into place normally. Another obstacle you may have encountered, though, is the thoughts of other people. You may know those people that like to poop on your parade sometimes. When you encounter them, you just have to remember that those people have some pretty bad thoughts swirling around in their own heads.
It’s not your responsibility to help them deal with their emotions. Hurt people hurt people… or at least they try to. Again, it is up to you whether you want their opinions to matter to you. And it’s up to you to decide if you’ll take their snide comments as truth.
Before you allow them to have leverage over your emotions, I implore you to remember who’s in control here. Here’s a hint: It’s not the mean person with the mean opinion. I’ll let you do with that information what you will.
You Just Matter
I know it can be hard to admit you’re a really great person. It was hard for me too. But I promise that once you start to truly love yourself for who you are you become unstoppable.
Believe it or not, I used to believe there was no point in me being on this Earth. Now, I hate myself for even thinking that way. I mean… I’ll always love myself, but I feel pretty crappy when I remember how I used to treat myself.
There are plenty of other things that we deal with as human beings. We deal with bills, feelings, and (ugh) other people. So there’s just no point in allowing ourselves to add to our already bad days. And it’s not going to be as easy as I make it sound all the time.
Sometimes you’ll be feeling really terribly about yourself only for something else to happen that makes your day much worse. Like when the seatbelt won’t let you pull it when you’re already mad at the world. These are human feelings and that is okay.
You don’t have to be a perfect person all the time. That’s why I started this blog in the first place. It’s not fair to judge yourself on top of every other human experience you go through already, but you do sometimes and that’s okay.
Just start by telling yourself how wonderful you are and go from there. Everything will fall into place eventually. Until then, feel free to peruse some other articles I’ve written to prove how great you are. And remember, everybody may not like me but they have no choice but to love me because I’ll always be there for them and accept them for who they are. Get to self-lovin’!