Can a person's worth change with what they do?
When you first help at a community information desk, almost every question sends you to someone more experienced. After several weeks, you know where the classes meet, which rooms are accessible and whom to ask about a lost item. Visitors can rely on you for things you could not help them with before.
Your value in that role has changed. You have learned, paid attention and become more useful. The people asking for help benefit from that effort.
That does not mean you deserve more basic respect than the person who has just arrived for their first day. Their knowledge is still limited, but they deserve to be treated with care while they learn.
In “How much I am worth”, Innocent writes about the worth he develops through his choices and actions. He rejects another person’s estimate as a fixed limit on what he can become. That changing value is worth taking seriously while keeping it separate from the respect and care a person deserves simply as a person.
A Spark from The Vision
Nobody alive today can tell me how much I am worth. I change that everyday. You are worth as much as you make yourself worth.
Be clear about what has changed
An ability, a contribution and a person’s conduct can each change. At the desk, learning the building makes you more helpful. Keeping your promise to arrive on time makes you more dependable. If you repeatedly fail to turn up without warning, other volunteers have a reason to rely on you less.
Those judgments concern something specific. They can affect which responsibilities you are given, what you need to learn or what you owe someone after letting them down. Respecting your dignity does not require pretending your actions have no consequences.
But “You missed your shift” and “You are worthless” are very different statements. The first identifies an event you can explain, take responsibility for or try to prevent. The second turns that event into a verdict on everything you are. It gives a single failure more authority than it can support.
The distinction matters when circumstances change too. If you become unable to keep doing the desk work, the help you can provide there has changed. You may be disappointed, and the group may need someone else in the role. None of that makes you less deserving of kindness or means you must find another useful job before your needs count.
Leave room for what you can still become
Innocent’s objection is also to the finality of an outside estimate. Someone may know what you can do today. They cannot know every choice you will make or every ability you will develop.
This does not make criticism irrelevant. If a visitor was sent to the wrong room, finding out why matters. Perhaps you guessed when you should have checked. Learning to say “I don’t know yet” could make you more reliable than trying to appear knowledgeable about everything.
Useful judgment leaves you with something you can recognise and work on. “I need to check before answering that question” is honest about the mistake. It also allows tomorrow’s answer to be better. You can accept what the incident shows without accepting that it has finished describing you.
Related lessons
AI-generated from Innocent Mwatsikesimbe's writing.
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