Your Value: Intrinsic and Unconditional
(The following content may be triggering for those with suicidal thoughts. In addition, no part of this content should be considered a replacement or substitution for professional mental health treatment.)
When it comes to experiencing suicidal thoughts, it’s easy to believe in them, the stories that they tell, and the future that they predict for you.
One common theme that suicidal thoughts follow is the idea that things are hopeless in your life, especially if you’ve made mistakes. Now, this could range from a wide variety of errors, but the important thing is that suicidal thoughts tend to focus on your value as a human as being extrinsic and conditional.
Let me break those terms down a bit.
By “extrinsic,” I’m talking about being tied to other, external things. Believing that your value comes from how much you produce, accomplish, or just do overall is common in our society. Feeling bad for taking a sick day, for example, would be an instance of buying into the notion of extrinsic human value.
By “conditional,” I’m referring to the concept that your value goes up or down depending on whether certain conditions are met. A lot of us put a lot of pressure to be perfect, and when we inevitably mess up, we feel as though our value as humans has somehow declined.
Between these two beliefs in extrinsic and conditional value as a person, there’s not much hope to be had. We can try to work ourselves until we’re exhausted, but there will always be more work, more productivity that could be done. We can try to be perfect, but when we make mistakes, there’s a viciousness towards ourselves that we would likely never use to another person.
If you look at suicidal thoughts as a reaction to these beliefs, then the hopelessness begins to feel real. So many times in my life has the thought come up that if I messed up somewhere in life, my value would plummet and there would be no point in living, in going on with tolerating myself.
Behavioral improvement (I’m not a fan of the term “self-improvement”) is great, admirable, and, in fact, where would humans be without it?
The thing is, though, we humans, even those of us who don’t experience suicidal thoughts because of it, tend to connect our doing with our being.
For instance, a couple of years ago, I became an avid reader. COVID-19 has since disrupted a lot of my habits, including reading a lot, but back in 2018–19, I was obsessed with reading to the point where I felt bad if I ever missed my daily page count. Not just felt bad, felt terrible, like my world was bottoming-out from me. Like I was a failure, not just as a reader, but as a human.
Looking back, that might seem like a fairly amusing example. But in all seriousness, we do this all the time in our lives. We tie something about our behavior to our value as humans. For instance, we might:
- Believe we’re failures for having an addiction to a behavior or substance,
- Harshly shame ourselves for making a mistake,
- Focus so much on being productive that we ignore other facets of our life,
- Become envious of others who seem to “have it together” in life,
- And compare ourselves to others to see who is seemingly doing the best and thus has the most value according to society’s standards.
Extrinsic and conditional value is a no-win situation to be in as a human. There’s a pervasive feeling of never being enough that, in my case, often developed into suicidal thoughts.
What if there was an alternative?
As you may have already guessed from the title of this piece, that alternative exists, and it is intrinsic and unconditional value.
“Intrinsic” means that as a human, you already have value just for being here. You don’t have to prove your value to anyone, including yourself.
“Unconditional” refers to the fact that your value isn’t tied to changing conditions, such as perfection or productivity.
Together, intrinsic and unconditional value are a powerful form of self-acceptance. Yes, for instance, you might have an addiction, but that doesn’t take away from your value as a human. An addiction simply represents a behavior, not a reflection on your whole self.
Furthermore, recognizing your intrinsic and unconditional value gives you a lot better motivation to pursue behavioral improvement. Because here’s the thing — I don’t want the concepts of intrinsic and unconditional value to be misunderstood as some kind of excuse for inexcusable, harmful behavior.
Rather, because humans are built to nurture life, including that of others and their own, it becomes clear that intrinsic and unconditional value allows you to do just that without having to worry about if/when your value goes up or down. This value gives you the power to sustain life for the sake of sustaining life, not for the sake of somehow enhancing the human value you already have.
Now, what does this have to do with suicidal thoughts?
If you recognize that you have value for being here, then that might help you move away from those beliefs and thoughts that you’re connected to externalities. As a result, you no longer feel hopeless about what you’ve done or will do in life.
The pursuit of enoughness, perhaps the defining characteristic of so much of our culture, doesn’t have to be a pursuit at all. Instead, you can take a step back and see your inherent value and then let it guide your life as you share your value with the world.
For more on self-acceptance, I can’t recommend this Psychology Today post enough.
