What are you really worth?

How do you know what you what you are worth?

Just recently I learned about a documentary called “A brave heart: the Lizzie Velasquez story”. Based on the trailer (to be fair, I have not been able to see the movie yet, and I’m basing my thoughts on her TED talk) it follows the story of Lizzie Velasquez, a woman in her late 20’s who suffers from an extremely rare (and unidentified) condition that results in her being unable to put on weight. Her condition has impacted her appearance and one of the moments that is most emotional in the trailer is when Lizzie describes the time she saw a video of herself on YouTube in which she had been branded as ‘the ugliest woman in the world’ with comments that included ‘Kill it with fire!’. Lizzie has shared that when she read this she was, quite understandably, crushed. However, Lizzie realised that she did not need to ground her worth in what others thought about her appearance.

There is some similarity here to Tracy Trinita's story. Tracy shared that in her experience super models, the most beautiful people in the world, were some of the most insecure people that she knew. Constantly being judged for your appearance was not a solid foundation for self worth, even for those who are said to be the most beautiful. Both Tracy and Lizzie have recognised that to seek our value in what other people think of us is a poor foundation to build our lives on.

However, there is a significant difference in where the two stories go from here. Lizzie said “I’m going to work my butt off to make myself better” and “I’m going to let my goals, success and accomplishments be the thing that define me.” And it sounds better than the option of seeking your self worth in letting others define you by your appearance. However, as much as I enjoyed hearing Lizzie’s story and how she wouldn’t let the opinion of others keep her down, the alternative perspective that she proposes actually has some of the same problems.

First, our own judgments aren’t a great foundation for our own self worth. I can be my own worst critic. I can say that I’ll let my goals and achievements define me, but I can still set goals and try to achieve things that are beyond me. This isn’t necessarily bad, after all I might be stretched to perform better than I otherwise might have, but it still illustrates the point that I can still fail to meet my own expectations of myself and deep down I’ll always know that.

Second, I worry for Lizzie that she has swapped one form of external validation for another. It is good that she has recognised that she is more valuable than the comments of a band of Internet trolls might suggest. However, this may be an oversimplification but it looks like she just replaced physical beauty, with public speaking ability. What happens when there are better public speakers? What happens if she is no longer able to do these tasks? Would she still be valuable? I want to say yes, of course she is! But I struggle to see how Lizzie could agree if she holds on to the criteria she has laid down for herself.

As much as I admire the snippets I’ve seen of Lizzie and have been impressed by her refusal to let the opinions of others define who she is, I worry that the alternative foundation she seems to be building on is no more solid.

Tracy’s story took her down a very different path. Tracy found that her value wasn’t in her success and achievements, she found them to be ultimately hollow and unable to give her true sense of worth. Tracy’s story was that it was only when she turned to God she saw that she had an unsinkable sense of her true worth. Tracy could see that she is valuable because God loves her and she could see the evidence of this in the story of Jesus.

On at least one metric or another, we all want to be valued. There are lots of areas that we could seek value in: as an employee, in the opinion of others whether parents, friends or strangers, as an athlete the list could go on and on. At City Bible Forum, we think that the story of Jesus has great relevance for all of life now, including how we know we are valuable. If you would be interested in starting to read one of the stories of Jesus with someone from City Bible Forum, please let us know.

We could also love to hear what you think in response to todays Reflect article. What defines you?

What do you think are the differences between Lizzie's story and Tracy’s?

Image: Courtesy of Nick Ares via Flickr