Suppose you inherited a piece of jewelry that had been in your family for centuries. Suppose it is the only one of its kind. Suppose your family lost it at one time and went to great lengths to finally get it back to its rightful owners, and it has now been passed down from generation to generation.
Apart from its great financial worth, it is also of incredible, inestimable sentimental value. I don’t care how ugly you believe it is. It is not just about you or your opinion of it. It belongs to the family. You don’t want to be the person in the history of your clan who lost this precious heirloom. You keep it in a safe place and wear it only on special occasions. When you get old, you pass it on to your son or daughter, keeping it where it belongs…in the family.
Consider the famous Mona Lisa, and how many times that painting has been reproduced and copied. I’m not an art connoisseur myself so I could hardly tell you the difference between the original and a counterfeit if they slapped me across the face and told me. So much value is placed on the original that no matter how identical a copy might be, it will never be worth the same as the real deal.
Don’t you know you are worth far more than a family heirloom and the Mona Lisa combined? Don’t you realize that you are a limited edition, a once in a lifetime, one in over ten million? Search past, present and future, and there is no one else exactly like you. This has been said to death and I know you’ve heard it all before, and yet you still sit there and compare yourself to someone else. You still rule yourself out and nitpick at all your flaws.
You protect your family heirloom no matter how many other jewelers come up with prettier pieces. You don’t carelessly sell it off to a stranger; you keep it within the family as much as you can. You hand it over only to one who is worthy. Its worth to you is far much more than what you can collect for it in dollars.
Like I already pointed out, I am no art buff, but to my naked, unsophisticated eye, our lovely Miss Mona Lisa (bless her heart) doesn’t look like your typical Vogue cover girl. The value of the painting is not because she is particularly stunning. Similarly, your value cannot be measured based on what clothes you wear, how many followers you have on social media or your waist-to-hip ratio.
You are worthy and valuable because you are the only one of your kind. But beyond that, the life you’re living right now, the time that you are alive and breathing, is also a once off deal. The second that just passed is not coming back again. The words you speak, you cannot take back. Value your life. Value your time. Place value on the words you intend to speak before they leave your lips and measure if they are worth it.
Know that you are precious and unique, just the way you are. Protect and love yourself. Give yourself only to one who is worthy because your value cannot be measured in hard currency.