No other animal does all that humans do: art museums, city tours, fly groups and cargo over the oceans, create electricity and use it for dozens of purposes. Yet, we get depressed, we get anxious, we suffer PTSD. It seems that we sometimes forget our advanced status and our top of the line abilities.
You can start a list today and put it in your journal or on your own website, some place where you won't lose it. It is fine to squirrel several copies away in different places. The next time you start wondering if you matter, take a look at your list. Loved by your parents? Gave a good speech in class? Snagged a great date? Married a wonderful partner? Drove all that distance? Saved all that money? Worked all those hours?
We are better at believing in externals that others, too can see and celebrate and envy. But what about those times in prayer, in church, meditating, simply appreciating? You might be the outstanding appreciator in town, maybe in the state.
Don't you feel embarrassed to be looking at yourself negatively when you have achieved so much? You couldn't explain to the birds or the bears what you have done, how you have loved, what peaks you have reached in gratitude, in calm, in love, in devotion. They just can't grasp what you have done. Forgive them. They have other tasks, other goals, other means. But at least give yourself honest credit. Take a look at Stephen Webb's TED talk or the book "Rare Earth". It is possible that on this planet or any other anywhere, there is just no one, no one at all, that can do what you have done, are doing and will do, soon. Have some honest pride.
