Hey You Know That Thing You're Good At? That Thing You Think Makes You Valuable? The Way You Are, Or

Hey you know that thing you're good at? That thing you think makes you valuable? The way you are, or the thing you do, etc?

You can be and deserve to be and will be loved and cherished even without it.

You're not worthwhile because you help, or you are good at making your art, or your skills at your job. You're worthwhile inherently, as a person, even without all that.

And I want you to internalize that because otherwise there might come a day where you can't do The Thing You Think Makes You Valuable. You'll get sick and can't draw, you'll burn out and can't do your job, you'll be emotionally unable to do your regular helpfulness for whatever reason, and you'll start to feel like you have no worth anymore.

But that's not true. You have worth, you deserve comfort and companionship and happiness, and that's not a conditional thing. You deserve that, even if you can't be Useful and Productive and all that shit.

It's an easy trap to fall into to justify yourself as "well, at least I help/make art/work hard" and have that be entirely too much of your self-esteem. Being proud of your work is fine. Being proud of yourself solely through your productivity is not, because you're making it conditional. And conditional on something that can change for reasons completely outside your control!

You gotta stop thinking about it like you gotta justify the space you take up on the planet. It's great if all those things make you happy: just make sure they're not the only things that make you feel like you are justifying your existence, or you'll crater if they get taken away.

You are lovable and likable and you have value as a person and a member of society, even if you never can be productive again. You are enough.