True Friends, True Value

by Julie Rahm

Earlier this year, I lamented to my friend, Kim, that I could not find time to do what I wanted to do with my business. She asked me what I was spending my time doing if it was not working toward my personal goals. As I recited the litany of organizations and tasks that took my time, she grinned and gave me the “cocker spaniel tilt” with her head. And then she said five short words that pierced my soul. “Where do you get your value?” As I rattled off a list of my achievements and character traits, she stopped me and said directly that it is not my worldly successes that give me value. She claimed it is not what I do, but how I am that caused her to love and respect me. I had to sit down. She said my value came simply from being created by God, unique and unrepeatable. The idea shook me to the core. For my entire life until that moment I thought people loved and respected me for all that I accomplished. After all, I had spent 43 years as a “human doing” instead of a “human being”, striving to achieve and be perfect. My stomach churned as I considered the possibility that Kim was right. I wondered what would be left of me if I peeled off the layers of worldly success. I needed more evidence.

For the next several weeks I paid close attention to my family and friends. When I told my husband that I was stacking the evidence of my value, he laughed. He could not believe that I thought he loved me for my competence, intellect, and talent, which apparently, in some areas are not as strong as I thought they were. He asked me to accept myself as an imperfect human, because my elevated frustration levels at my imperfect performances of simple tasks was not attractive. This was not the data I expected to collect.

The most outstanding moment of evidence came when my Leadership Craven class climbed the three-story tower during our closing retreat. (I wrote about the climb in my August blog entry entitled, The Ascent.) At this point I still did not believe Kim. Some classmates climbed the tower to the top, some did not. The only option I allowed myself was climbing to the top. However, another classmate who felt the same way I did stopped just short of the top and could go no further. When he reached the ground he received the same back slaps and high fives that I did. Whether or not we reached the top had nothing to do with how our classmates felt about us.

After stacking the evidence for a month, my churning stomach turned into a feeling of relief. I could literally breathe again. I have value simply because I am. It is who I am, not what I do that draws people to me. I began to get excited about the possibilities of living as a limited, imperfect human being. After all, there are only 88 keys on a piano and yet with only those keys available to them, composers and songwriters have written millions of different pieces. And, with only the colors in a rainbow, artists have painted millions of beautiful pictures.