ZURAC'S THOUGHTS ON SELF WORTH
“I will say to achieve this effectively; one must first be very aware that they are not perfect, and that perfection is not required for what I will call a solid sense of self-worth. Part of the difficulty with this concept is that many people perceive that they must have it all together, they must have a lot going on in their lives, they must be successful, they must have achieved this or that goal to feel good about themselves. They do not understand that perhaps they may be in the middle of an unpleasant relationship, or they may be in a job that they are unhappy with, or they may not be happy with where they are living, or they may have absolutely no idea what it is they want to do with their lives. They can be experiencing one or all of these things at the same time and still have a sense of self-worth.
Ideally... the sense of self-worth is not something that comes and goes depending on one’s external situation, you understand? This is... a sense of one's self that is maintained regardless of what is occurring in this outside world.
...If one, for example, feels better about themselves because they quit one job and went to one that they perceive to be better... I would not necessarily call that self-worth. I would call that something else, and there's nothing wrong with that feeling. There's nothing wrong with feeling better about one’s self when they have achieved something that is perceived to be better than something they have achieved in the past. However, I would not term this 'self-worth,' not from my perspective. The type of self-worth I would like to define is more about a sense of what one is capable of, and one's place, I will say, in the world, although the sense comes from within. It is a sense of solidity. It is a sense of, in a manner of speaking, groundedness about one's capabilities.
...While one has the full ability to mold their sense of self in whatever manner they like, at the same time, the sense of self is certainly affected by their experiences, for example their childhood, their boss, their teacher, an unpleasant relationship they have, etc. As with nearly everything we speak about, one has the capability to formulate what they would like to occur and the manner in which it could occur. However... you are not always
recognizing this power. You are not always recognizing your capability to do so. So I will say, because of this experience of being human, there are many other factors on one's sense of self. However, this need not be the case...”
