Feelings of worthlessness frequently plague people suffering from depression. Your cognitive distortions ensure it. Don’t engage with the thoughts. For one thing, when you attempt to refute the thoughts, your brain will relentlessly argue and search your entire life for “evidence” that you are inadequate. For another, your worthiness is not dependent on a good or bad deed anyway, and thinking that it does will just ensure that you constantly judge yourself.
Instead, zoom out.
By Nasa (http://imgur.com/gallery/HiFTQvM) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
You started out as a single cell that divided creating more cells, which also divided, and so on until you became an adult with approximately 37.2 trillion of them.1 Each cell contains the same genome which is made up of DNA that instructs the cells how to behave, yet the genes are expressed differently to instruct the cell where to go and how to function.2 As you developed, each cell knew where to go to form your heart, your brain, your kidneys, your lungs, your eyelashes, your toes – and so on. Every cell in your body has a job, knows what it is, and does it – day in and day out – with no complaints and without any conscious effort on your part.
Your body has about 7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms,3 and each one is billions of years old.4
Your heart beats on its own, circulating about 2000 gallons of blood each day 5 without you ever having to do a thing.
Your brain, with its 100 trillion synapses connecting 86 billion neurons – 1000 times more than the stars in our galaxy – can hold up to 1,000,000,000,000,000 bits of information.6 Science can tell us what and how, but it can never tell us why. My point is, you don’t need a reason to feel worthy. You’re a freakin’ miracle!
We all come in the same way, and we all go out the same. Never let anyone make you feel inferior.
1 Eveleth, R. (Oct. 24, 2013). There are 37.2 Trillion Cells in Your Body. Smithsonian. Retrieved Feb. 14, 2018 From: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-372-trillion-cells-in-your-body-4941473/
2 Different genes are active in different kinds of cells. DNA From The Beginning. Retrieved Feb. 14, 2018 From: http://www.dnaftb.org/36/
3 Burke, M. (Sept. 22, 2017). 50 Interesting Facts About the Human Body. Factinate. Retrieved Feb. 14, 2018 From: https://www.factinate.com/things/50-interesting-facts-human-body/
4 Clegg. B. (Jan. 26, 2013) 20 Amazing Facts About the Human Body. The Guardian. Retrieved Feb. 14, 2018 From: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jan/27/20-human-body-facts-science
5Beckerman , MD, FACC, J (Nov. 8, 2017) High Blood Pressure and the Heart. WebMD. Retrieved Feb. 14, 2018 From: https://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/hypertension-working-heart#1
6 Burke, M. (Sept. 22, 2017). 50 Interesting Facts About the Human Body. Factinate. Retrieved Feb. 14, 2018 From: https://www.factinate.com/things/50-interesting-facts-human-body/
