Tag Archives: worth

A place to rest

Resting Securely

Challenges and Frustrations, Knowing Our Place in the Story, , , , , ,

Long weekends are hard for me. Vacations are even worse. Regular old weekdays I can handle: I get up at the same time, start my morning routine (with or without kids, depending on the time of year), and leave for work. At work, the first thing I do is start a new day’s entry in my work journal, list out any appointments I have, and identify any tasks that I need to get done that day. Throughout the day, if I get off track or distracted, I can return to that initial entry for the day and reorient myself to what I should be doing.

When I’m off work, though, it can be hard for me to relax. I often have a nagging feeling that I ought to be doing more: writing more, working in the yard more, exercising more, fixing up the house more, playing with my kids more. Instead of a day for rest and restoration, the day becomes filled with guilt and regret.

What’s going on here? What’s behind this sense that every day, even a day of vacation and rest, has to used for maximum productivity? Why is resting so difficult?

The root issue is the false idea that the worth of a day is measured in how much has been accomplished. By extension, the worth of a life is measured in the same way. How much have I gotten done? How many tasks have I checked off my list? How does my list compare to everyone else’s?

But the worth of a life is not measured in this way. A life has inherent worth, even if it seems futile or wasted. The worth of a life – the worth of my life – is based on the truth that a human life is made in the image of God. Each day of my life is worthy, even if nothing gets checked off my list.

I can rest securely from my labors because there is great value in simply being. Doing has its place – many places, in fact – but we have to make space for being. If we don’t, then instead of resting, we will collapse from exhaustion. Our bodies will force us to rest, whether we want to or not.

On this Labor Day, and on every day of rest, remember in whose image you are made. Remember your inherent worth as a person. Take pride in the good work you have accomplished at the appropriate times. And rest securely in the knowledge that God is with you.

Photo credit: Angelo Amboldi via Flickr

Reminder

Reminding Yourself of True Worth

Identity and Vocation, Identity: Knowing Who We Are, ,

This quote from C.S. Lewis helped inspire this blog:

There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. – C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Some of my worst days have come when I’ve forgotten this truth, in one of two different ways. Often, I have forgotten my worth and believed false ideas from others or from inside my own head. Just as often, though, I’ve forgotten that others are also extraordinary and treated them below their status of children of God. I’ve found that I need to remind myself on a regular basis of both sides of this truth: I’m no “ordinary person,” and neither is anyone else.

Forgetting What You’re Worth

When I was struggling with fundraising in my work with InterVarsity, I had a very difficult time remembering that my worth wasn’t measured in how many dollars I managed to raise that week. I never put it in quite those terms, of course, because then it would have been too easy to see through the illusion. Instead, I tortured myself with constant anxiety expressed in a series of “if only”s: if only I made more calls, if only I improved my presentation, if only I had a better system, if only I could find money from somewhere else.

Up until then, I hadn’t dealt with much rejection or vocational struggle in my life. Perhaps if I’d had a telemarketing job in college or done door-to-door sales at some point, I would have developed the ability to ignore rejection and move on to the next challenge sooner. Perhaps – but I’m sure that the struggle would have been just as difficult for me to process. Fortunately, by facing this struggle in the context of InterVarsity, surrounded by many wise and loving people, I had the opportunity to learn that my success in fundraising – or any part of life – had nothing to do with my ultimate identity and worth.

This wisdom has helped me face struggles with my work outside of InterVarsity. Once, when I was dealing with an extremely difficult relationship with a (now former) supervisor, I joked with my wife that she had picked the wrong person to deal with, because I knew that her opinion of me had no power over me.

Neither our failures nor our successes define us.

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Worth Valley in the Snow by John Sargent

Worth, Gender Inequality, and the Baseball Hall of Fame

Identity and Vocation, Missing Our Significance – and Others', , , ,

Two scorecard-related announcements this week led me to think about the question of worth and how we measure it.

The Worth of Your Work

First, How Much have Global Problems Cost the World?: A Scorecard from 1900 to 2050, was published, edited by Bjørn Lomborg, an adjunct with the Copenhagen Business School. Lomborg wrote an article for The Atlantic summarizing the results of the report card. Overall, this books sounds like it offers a great perspective on the material progress that humanity has made and continues to make.

One of the measures, however, struck me as a bit odd: gender equality. Not the issue itself, but the way in which it was measured:

In 2012, women’s lower salaries and exclusion from the workplace cost the global economy 7 percent of GDP, the difference between boom and bust. How did we get that figure? We looked at how much more women could have contributed to GDP if they had worked as much as men and with the same pay. Today, women earn only 60 percent as much as men and make up just 40 percent of the workforce—a significant improvement from 15 percent in 1900, but still a ways off from gender parity. Even by 2050 the gender ratio will not yet be even, and women will still earn 30 percent less than men. [Emphasis added.]

Lomborg has clarified that the measure used in this case takes into account both paid and unpaid work, expressed in terms of GDP. Reducing questions of equality, however, to an economic measure creates the false impression that how much you are paid is an accurate measure of how much you are worth.

Continue reading Worth, Gender Inequality, and the Baseball Hall of Fame →