“Your value does not decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.” (Unknown), as seen so time ago on the Jack’s Winning Words blog.
We have become too much of a “See me” and “Like me” society, always seeking the 
opinions and approval of others to validate ourselves. The self-promotion of many social media sites supports that need to be seen and to receive approval from others. We’ve even become comfortable with asking people to “Like me” on Facebook or elsewhere. We keep score by how many “Likes” we get. Yet none of that really makes a difference if you do not like yourself or your life.
Happiness with one’s life and with one’s self starts with accepting who and what you are and finding some level of peace with you circumstances. That might be very hard for someone who is starving or cold or lonely; however, somewhere, deep within them there is the recognition that at least they are still alive and able to hope and strive for a better tomorrow. Most of us never get to that state where just being alive is all that we can be 
thankful for; but, many of us don’t take the time to really think about all that we have and have been given and thank God for what we have, much less thank Him for who we are. God made each of us unique, each with talents and abilities that please Him in some way. He sees our value, so who else really matters? You don’t have to pray to God “See me; Like me”; He already does.
If you can accept that God sees your worth as a human being, the next step is not to seek the approval of others; but, rather, to help others accept that same message and to become happy with who they are, too. You’ll be able to do that because those who develop a good sense of self-worth also develop self-confidence. Jack Welch said this about self-confidence –
“Giving people Self-Confidence is by far the most important thing that I can do, because then they will ACT.”
God will give you the self-confidence to act, to share your story and to help others find 
self-worth through their belief in God. Instead of wandering through life asking others to “See me; Like me”, you will be able to seek out others to say, “I see you and I like you; you have worth to God”. All of this will happen when you have come to peace with who you are and see the value in your life as your ability to serve God by helping others.
Being at peace with yourself starts by resisting the tendency to measure yourself and your circumstances in life against others and what they have. You are not them and you may never have all of the things that they have. Even if you did have those things, do you really think that would make you happy? Rather, focus upon being the best you that you can be. I 
wrote about that in my post of February 16 – Be the best you that you in existence… and again just two days ago in Be the person that you would like to be. If you can stop worrying about what other think and start acting upon the mission that God has given you to spread the Good News, you will be much happier with your sense of self-worth. After all, one “Like” from God is worth more than thousands of “Likes” on Facebook.
Have a great, worthy and self-confident day! Like yourself first.
Posted by Norm Werner 
“What would Jesus do?”, but I submit that doing so abstracts the process too much. These are our decisions to make and it is up to us to make them. Perhaps a better way to phrase that last saying might be to ask yourself, “What would a person who follows the teachings of Jesus do?” That at least brings us full-circle back to thinking about the person that we’d like to be – a person who follows the teachings of Jesus.
against the stream of what appears to be commonly accepted practice. That requires courage and a strong belief that what you are about to do is the right thing, the thing that the person that you wish to be would do. Steve had a great quote for that –
protest the treatment of people of color or ethnicity. It takes courage to stand up and say that I will not be treated like an object anymore or take any more of your abuse. It takes courage to decide that you are not going to continue to “go along to get along” anymore. Be the person that you would like to be and act now, before “not now” becomes never in your life.
get yourself into and the reactions that you have to them. Ask yourself how the person that you would like to be would act and react in those situations. Would that person show courage or cowardice? Would that person act without thinking or think about it without acting and perhaps let not now become never?
hard look at it yourself. Are you where you want to be in life? Are you surrounded by those that you really want to be with in life? Are you doing the things that you really want to do in life? Take a good hard look at your life-selfie and ask yourself those questions and more. As Socrates said – “The unexamined life is not worth living.” A life-selfie may give you a way to examine your own life.
The answer to all of those selfie reflections is no; we don’t have to just continue down the current path. We have been given a free will and the ability to change our direction at any time. The momentum of life may try to carry us along the old path, but we can break free and chose a different path. The key to making that decision probably starts with that life selfie and a critical evaluation of what we see in that picture of our life. That review doesn’t mean that you have to beat yourself up for past life decisions; but it does mean that you need to be brutally honest with yourself about where you are in life and where you really want to be.
your life. Some things might be easy to fix immediately; perhaps stopping a bad habit or stopping your association with bad people who may lead you astray. Other things, like making a job change to find something that will both provide the necessary income and make you happier, could take a while and require careful planning. At least you will know that you have made that choice, based on your life selfie and you may start feeling better about the future right away.
Local life coach and author, Norma Nicholson, has published a book called Living a Balanced Life which might give you some perspective, in addition to your life selfie, on the things that you might need to consider doing to change the direction of your life and get it back in balance. You can find out more about Norma at 
yourself. If you see things that need to be changed in your life, make a plan and start those changes. You don’t have to continue down a path that you don’t really like. Making changes, bused upon this evaluation of your life-selfie is not selfish; however, it is self-serving and that’s a good thing. The next time that you take a life-selfie, after you make those changes, I think you’ll find a different person smiling back at you.
completely absorbed in) that will make you happy. I’ve noticed that many people are most happy when they are completely absorbed in their family life; when being with, and participating in things with, their wives and children take away any cares of the world and they just enjoy the moment and the experiences with family.
dmittedly, it is a somewhat rare and perhaps a fleeting experience; but think of the last time you and your loved ones had a great group experience together and how happy that made you feel. Maybe it was a family pillow fight on a weekend morning, or maybe the fun of a visit to an amusement park or the zoo. There’s nothing that can make you happier than everyone in the family laughing and having fun together while doing something together. Not only are you completely absorbed by the experience, but you also get to share in and draw from the happiness of others in the group experience.
takes on the characteristics of a job for you. It’s also important to maintain control of yourself within the pursuit of a hobby/sport, so that it doesn’t start to take over your life or get way out of hand. Many times on the TV show American Pickers, they show people who have crossed over the line from collectors to hoarders, some of whom eventually recognize that and are trying to pull back from had become an obsession and regain control of their collection hobby. In sports we have probably all encountered the uber-competitive fanatic for whom the sport has become totally a win-lose proposition, rather than a pleasant and enjoyable pastime. There is often more frustration than happiness to be found in that approach to sports.
with them about why they do what they do, why they spend the hours or toil away behind the scenes on jobs with little public recognition for their efforts; they will usually tell you that it makes them feel good; it makes them happy. There’s lots of business advice that says doing the jobs that no one else wants to do is a good way to succeed in business. I think that it is good advice for life in general and your reward in life is a payoff in happiness. Sometimes you are the only one who knows that you did some of those things; but, knowing that you did allows you to make your own happiness from the effort and the success.
you find the happiness from inside? The power to create your own happiness is within you. Find those things in which you can become completely absorbed – a family activity, a hobby, a sport, service to others, whatever – and lose yourself in it. You will experience happiness as a by-product.
when I don’t get up and say thank you to somebody.” (Rod Stewart)
Think about your own life and how many times a parent or teacher or others helped you, even when you didn’t want to be helped at the time. How many times did you say thank you back then? If they are still here, why not go back and do it now? Every day is a good day to thank someone. You can start each day by thanking God for giving you another day and then think about who else deserves a thank you.
self-sufficient. We live in a society, not in a vacuum; and that society is dependent upon cooperation between its members. Sometimes that cooperation is called help and sometimes it is called intervention and all of us in this society may need a little of both from time-to-time.
said it to that person. Saying thank you has a double sided benefit; it makes the person that you said it to feel good about themselves and what they did and it makes you feel good about having acknowledged their contribution to your day or life. Saying thank you is a win-win for all concerned. Think about how big that win will be for you, if you start by saying thank you to God each morning. His will be one “You’re welcome” that you don’t want to miss.
might have shifted down to a lower gear when you were going up a hill and pumped a little bit harder and faster; but for the most part you settled into a comfortable gear for the flat portions and just pedaled along. Life can be like that. We all hit tougher (uphill) stretches during which we must shift gears and pedal harder and faster; but for the most part we just settle into a comfortable gear and pedal along through life.
decision to volunteer at a local charity means switching gears. Making the decision to work with special needs children or adults requires a switch in your gears. Deciding to volunteer at your church or maybe at your child’s school will require choosing a new gear. Even the decision to just try to be a better partner in your life-relationship or a better parent to your children means choosing a new gear and pedaling harder. Doing those things means raising your life to a new, higher level and requires a new, uphill gear and that you pedal faster and harder.
mething out of the ordinary to help someone else? Can you put more effort into your relationships with your family members? Can you show the world your faith in actions, rather than just talking about it? Can you do better? Can’t we all?
career and the need to make more and more money, that one forgets the important things in life – why and for who they are supposedly doing it. All too often it is the parting embrace of the father-daughter dance at her wedding that a father realizes his little girl has grown up and that he missed most of it, because he was so hard at work. Perhaps it is when his son drives away with his bride that the father stops to reflect on years of missed ball games and lost opportunities for father-son bonding.
people who fall into that trap find out that the most important roles that they ever had in life were husband and father. At least Dorson recognized that enough to plan Daddy Days when he was home.
the foundation upon which your life is based. The boat will almost certainly try to float away and take you from that foundation. It is tempting sometimes to just jump into the boat and see where it takes you and you may not even look back at the dock until it is out of sight. It takes a stronger person to keep a foot on/in both and not let the boat drift away with you in it. If you really think about it; everything that you really want and cherish is on the dock and not in the boat; so, never give up your foothold there.
“It’s good to shut up sometimes.” (Marcel Marceau) – as seen on the 
You may say that you are happy with your life as it is; happy to be in the little rut that you’ve carve out for yourself in life by treading the same path every day. Yet most of us have enough self-awareness to know that there may be (must be) something more to life; something that will increase our sense of self-worth and accomplishment; something that is currently missing in or lives. That something is likely not on the well-worn path that you are on; otherwise you might have encountered it by now. You have the choice to make to take a chance or not, in order to change your life for the better by finding that missing element in your life.
live openly in the lifestyle in which they feel most comfortable. For Transsexuals it is the choice to identify and live with the gender that they feel in their heart, not the gender that was inscribed on their birth certificate. For everyone on that spectrum it is the choice to take the chance to change their lives by living openly as they wish to live, instead of hiding their identities in fear.
they find the missing sense of accomplishment and self-worth that their day-to-day work life was not supplying. For some the change may be to finally establish a relationship with God, through the acceptance of Jesus Christ as their savior. Many may have gone through the motions of going to church all of their lives and never taken that final step of accepting Christ. Make the choice to take that chance and change your life forever.
In today’s find it now, buy it now, do it now world, having the patience, the perseverance and faith to wait for that greater happiness goes against the grain. We have become an instant gratification society, while religion has remained a “hope for it, pray for it, wait for it” practice.
we need to substitute much more believing, in place of all of the effort we make to try to understand the unimaginable. We can’t and don’t need to understand, we just need to believe and accept. Once we let go of the things of this life, we are ready for the things that come in the next. It is sort of like those cute ads for the web site LetGo.com; we have to let go of the things we don’t really need any more for this life and certainly not for the next. If I can let go of the baggage of this life and just believe; I’ll be better prepared to experience the promised greater happiness – maybe I’ll even experience a little of it here. What a wonderful thought that is to focus upon today.
NormsMilfordBlog 