If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me about what I’m going to do for a profession, I wouldn’t have to get a job. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me who I want to be as a person, I wouldn’t have quite as much money. When did what job we possessed or what wealth we accumulated become more important than our value as a person?

When you describe what your best friend may bring to the table in your relationship, I’m assuming money isn’t the first thing you say if you mention it at all. You mention things like integrity, honesty, trustworthiness, compassion, etc. So why do the things we stress over and let take over our lives matter so much to the eyes of someone else? You work so hard to make the grades, keep the job or get promoted, and for what? So that someone you hardly know can look at you and say, “That’s what success looks like”? There are plenty of people who may be successful in the monetary right, but have nothing else to prove for themselves besides a solid work ethic. What about compassion? What about having such a drive to help others that you can’t go to bed knowing someone close to you is not one hundred-percent themselves? What about having so much love in your soul you have no idea what to do with it all? Although people’s ambitions are different, achieving a standard in society shouldn’t be the main priority. Figuring out who you are as a person and how you want to improve yourself, if you do, is one of the biggest steps for positive change.

I want to be someone who constantly lightens the mood, who changes the environment of a room in a positive way. I want to be someone that people struggle to find something bad to say. I want to be someone who inspires others to make a reckless decision every so often, while still staying focused and grounded on their dreams. Whatever I do for a living, while money does slightly matter, I want to be someone who helps others. I want to go into work and leave knowing that I changed someone else’s life even a little bit. I want to be someone who makes a change, and I’m not talking about the value of currency.

There’s something about change and progression that you can’t put a dollar amount on. You can’t truly buy a helping hand or encouraging word whenever you need one. You develop value and worth with the help of who you surround yourself with and how they help you get to where you want to be, as long as finding the power within yourself as a person, as a gift, as a miracle. As soon as you realize how valuable you are and how incredible you are, things start to feel easier and more attainable. The focus on improving yourself as a person instead of working towards things that may not truly be your dream will help you get to where you want to be as a person, not just as a number or statistic. Do something today that you will thank yourself for. Do something that impacts you and makes a change to your own life. The sooner you start to see yourself from a positive light, the sooner you will make a change in other peoples’ lives, the way you want to.