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The Meaning of "Self-Worth"

Lead Guitar Wankery

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Self-worth is a concept I've never understood. I know that it has something to do with feelings about oneself, but I decided to post about it in this sub-forum instead of the Psychology sub-forum because I would like to get at the ideas underpinning the emotion of positive/negative self-worth, the premises, assumptions, understanding that make the concept sensible.

Parsing the words individually gets me nowhere.


It seems that the word does not mean quite the same thing as self-esteem; one is about valuing and the other is about liking (esteeming). I can understand liking oneself, but valuing oneself I can't make sense of (as explained in the spoiler). So what does self-worth mean?
 

Typh0n

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Well, people confuse the self, which you describe, with the persona, the mask we wear for society.

In order for the self, the subjective universe, to be able to function in society, it needs to adapt itself to the objective universe, so it creates a "buffer" between itself and society. I think people confuse their selves with this persona, since knowledge of the self has always been found in mystery schools and not in "regular" society, its kinda hard to come by, knowledge of the self, that is. So basically, people think the persona, the mask, is the self, they mistake their personalities for their true selves. Which explains why people see their persona as something to be loved, since it is partly an object after all (a buffer beweeen the objective and subjective universes), and thus they talk about "self-worth" or "self-love".

I could be crazy, but that's my 2c. ;)
 

Mole

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Self-worth is a concept I've never understood. I know that it has something to do with feelings about oneself, but I decided to post about it in this sub-forum instead of the Psychology sub-forum because I would like to get at the ideas underpinning the emotion of positive/negative self-worth, the premises, assumptions, understanding that make the concept sensible.

Parsing the words individually gets me nowhere.


It seems that the word does not mean quite the same thing as self-esteem; one is about valuing and the other is about liking (esteeming). I can understand liking oneself, but valuing oneself I can't make sense of (as explained in the spoiler). So what does self-worth mean?

If we value ourselves, we will listen to our feelings as they arise. If we don't value ourselves, we will have psychological defences to avoid listening to our feelings as they arise.

In short, if we value ourselves, we are comfortable in our own skin.
 

Coriolis

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Self-worth is a concept I've never understood. I know that it has something to do with feelings about oneself, but I decided to post about it in this sub-forum instead of the Psychology sub-forum because I would like to get at the ideas underpinning the emotion of positive/negative self-worth, the premises, assumptions, understanding that make the concept sensible.

Parsing the words individually gets me nowhere.

It seems that the word does not mean quite the same thing as self-esteem; one is about valuing and the other is about liking (esteeming). I can understand liking oneself, but valuing oneself I can't make sense of (as explained in the spoiler). So what does self-worth mean?
Your attempt at a literal explanation is a bit contrived but reveals some relevant insights. First, the idea of how much the self values the self is far from nonsensical. Many people place too little value on themselves, and as a result don't take adequate care of themselves, and underestimate both their needs and capabilities. Other people value the self too highly. Second, the idea of the self as a tool in service to the self looks alot like the notion that ultimately I am the only person I can control. If Iwant to have something or to accomplish something, I should expect to put my own talents, effort, and resources into it.

In short, I see self worth as what you perceive when you have true and accurate self-knowledge. As such it is the follow-on to "know yourself".
 

greenbean

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We have aspects of ourselves that we value, personality, achievements, etc and I suppose self worth would be deciding what parts are good enough. And we decide what's "good enough" by comparing to other members of society, role models and our expectations. The self is a tool for the self if it manages to use the correct aspects of itself in order to attain what we want.
 

magpie

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Yes, it seems like a tautology, right? In order to assign yourself value you already have to believe that the value you assign yourself is true, because your self valuation is worth nothing if you don't view your own valuation as worthy. It's an issue of getting lost in subjectivity. If you assign value to yourself, how do you know that the value you're assigning is correct and true? You are only going to run into this problem if you don't have a firm grasp on your own internal moral and emotional decision making process.

Value and worth are inherently intertwined as concepts, with the intensity of the valuation having a direct increase on worth. I've found the best way to escape the solipsism is to focus on what is objectively valuable. I'm not taking about accomplishments or society's view of success. Those are not objective - they're subjective but valued by society. I'm talking about what is objectively good, worthwhile, and helpful to our society as a species and therefore, on some level, to each individual. If you can find concepts that fit the above criteria, you can begin to discover whether or not they are in yourself and whether or not you want them to be, and your self valuation will eventually have a backing that is objectively good in terms of its positive effects on yourself and others. And the more positive effects it has on yourself and others, the more self worth you'll have just because you have so much value to yourself and others.

What is valuable is in what you value.
 

Mole

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One way to look at it is that self esteem is how others see us, and self respect is how we see ourselves. Self esteem is very tempting, but is a never ending treadmill, while self respect comes with achievement.

We have been sold on self esteem before we achieve anything, so is exquisitely New Age, it appeals to our egos, and our sense of entitlement, and is spectacularly misleading.
 

á´…eparted

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I can only speak for myself, but my self worth is mostly externally derived. I look to others around me, mostly those I value and trust to have good morals, good judgment, or have no bias. How they respond to what I say, do, and am tells me what I am "worth" as a person. There's a baseline of course, but it scales it. I don't always need to reference others around me. There are also regarded standards to the world that I will see and see where I line up. Based on all of these together I come up with a general feeling for what my self worth is.

I don't feel comfortable just assigning it to myself with no reference as I am inherently bias and what I think won't be an accurate reflection of what it ultimately is.
 

Coriolis

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It wasn't contrived; it's what I genuinely thought. I don't understand why you call it contrived.
Interesting that this is the one part of my post that caught your attention.

Being contrived and your genuine thoughts are not mutually exclusive. After all, someone must do the contriving. You admitted yourself that "parsing the words individually gets me nowhere". You know this because you went through the exercise to see what happens. What you get seems forced, strained, or even artificial rather than revealing the true meaning of "self worth", which is basically the definition of "contrived".
 

Coriolis

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I read your whole post. I paid attention to all of it.
I see. So it is only your responses that are highly selective. Curious, but unoffending.
By the way, paying attention and having one's attention caught by something are not the same.
 

Zoom

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Self-worth is a concept I've never understood. I know that it has something to do with feelings about oneself, but I decided to post about it in this sub-forum instead of the Psychology sub-forum because I would like to get at the ideas underpinning the emotion of positive/negative self-worth, the premises, assumptions, understanding that make the concept sensible. Parsing the words individually gets me nowhere. *snip* But on what basis does one determine the value of herself with respect to herself? *snip* So what does self-worth mean?
This seems to be a search for an objective answer to a potentially subjective query. I think it would be difficult to narrow down a definition of the underpinnings of self-worth if the determining factors for one's self worth are specific to each individual. Do you just wish for answers from individuals to help give you a better idea of the possible reasons behind it? :coffee:
 

burningranger

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Typh0n nailed on the head. Language is how we think and you can find yourself CONCEPTUALIZING things to no end. I define self-worth one way, you another, oh but self-esteem is not the same as self-worth.... and on and on it goes. It's a load of crap....the stuff we have in our minds.

Ultimately, it's the reason that motivated you to ask what is self-worth that is more important than defining it. What are you yearning for, that an answer to that question might solve? Maybe you feel like shit. Then address that directly.

Philosophizing our way out of our lack of self-awareness is a disease and an addiction in this society. We don't really want the answers....only to keep the discussion going. If you do want an answer you will quickly discern with clarity the right question....and the answer will immediatelly arise within you. If it's feeling like shit that pains you then what youll want is to feel good. And once you do...the question of self-worth will be void....along with all the jargon and philosophy. A 3 year old doesn't ask himself if he has any worth according to any system at all....

Just to add : self-worth as an energetic/emotional phenomenon is a NATURAL occurence in EVERYBODY unless through conditioning our mental ideas of ourselves and the world get warped into faultfinding ourselves. Period. You can even lower your self-worth because you think you should be able to know how to answer the question "what is self-worth?" lol.....it's a game. Maybe what is self-LACK would be a better question. How do we find the ways in which are lacking.....and the answer is ....in every possible permutation available in infinity :p That's what our society teaches us.
 
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