On the last day of my senior year of high school, my English teacher presented a room full of eager soon-to-be graduates with two objects: A plastic gold coin and a small glass stone. Somewhat befuddled, we gave him the same blank stares that we had given throughout the past months before when he asked who had actually done the reading or who wanted to provide their interpretation of a particularly difficult excerpt of Shakespeare’s "Henry V."
All confusion aside, I don’t think that I could have emotionally prepared myself for the weight of the lesson in human worth he was about to share or predicted the ways in which it would impact my worldview in the months ahead. I am immensely grateful to have received this message, and I truly believe that it’s an important one for anyone who has ever been adversely impacted by malignant ideas about their intrinsic value as a human being.
His explanation went something like this: Throughout the course of history, humans have used currency as a means of ascribing value to the things around them. Currency is not fixed; the worth of a coin, a dollar bill or any other monetary object is subject to fluctuation based on the historical circumstances or even the perceptions of the general population. There is nothing inherently beautiful about a coin. Its beauty is contingent upon the value other humans choose to give it in a given place and time. In fact, the gilded outer appearance of a coin often gives a perception of luster that is used to mask inner dullness.
In contrast, a precious stone has worth on the merit of its own existence. While the monetary value of a gem might fluctuate over time, its intrinsic beauty cannot be taken away. A precious stone will always be precious, whether held in the palm of a human hand or buried beneath layers of mired soil. What’s most incredible about a gem, however, isn’t merely its striking beauty, but the manner by which this beauty came to be. Subject to immense amounts of heat and pressure, a gem is formed by struggle — and made more beautiful because of it.
Humans too often believe that their worth is like the coin, defined by other people’s views or by fluctuating circumstances. As we prepared to venture out into a world where others are quick to impose their fickle perceptions of our worth upon us, my teacher urged us to see ourselves as gems, made beautiful and valuable by the pressures we have endured. In the past year, I’ve made remarkable strides in learning to believe that I am indeed my own unique precious stone, and the effect this belief has had on my day to day life has been unimaginable.
Throughout my high school years, I definitely had a tendency to place my worth in external things that I believed would make people like me more — my appearance, my academic success, my leadership activities and my generally upbeat personality — the list could go on and on. While many of these things are certainly important parts of my identity, they slowly began to consume it, and I believed that I was nothing without them.
Worse yet, I often used them to mask more difficult things I was dealing with because I was certain that my value depended on others thinking that I had it all together. Meanwhile, I was internally struggling with feelings of loneliness, inadequacy and exhaustion that ultimately compromised my mental health and ability to live fully.
It wasn’t until I internalized the truth that I am shaped and made beautiful by struggle that I felt comfortable in my own skin and began to live as an intrinsically valuable human whose worth is not defined by others but by the very essence of my own messy, vulnerable and unique humanity. I now find that I am able to do the things I care about with deeper and greater intensity; I think harder, I laugh louder, I walk taller and love deeper as I discover an inherent beauty that was there all along.
So if you find yourself caught up in the futile system of human currency, remember this — you are not the gilded coin. You are the gem, the precious stone shaped by the innumerable pressures of your unique human experience. You don’t have to conform to arbitrary human molds in order to be valued and loved. You simply have to be, believing that who you are is always and ever enough. Believing this is a process of conscious unlearning of lies you may have internalized from others (and likely yourself) for God knows how long. But as you begin to understand your infinite worth, my hope is that you will find yourself empowered to live with a kind of boldness and authenticity that no sum of money could ever buy.
