Worth

On the beginning of "awards season" and how we see ourselves

Worth is not
tied up 
in gold statuettes.

It doesn’t live in 
others’ perceptions.

It’s not about 
what you do.
What you contribute.

It has no correlation
to how much money 
you “make.”

The person holding 
that statuette on TV is 
no different 
from you.

Two eyes
two ears 
two arms 
two legs
two lungs.
One heart.

A different path
maybe
but still
just human—
just like you.
Worth no more 
and no less.

And just as 
scared as 
you would be 
that someone 
might figure that out—
might see that 
they’re not as special 
as others say they are 
after all.

They’re wrong
of course. 
And so are you.
They are just as 
special. 
And so are you.

It is only the world 
that tells us we’re not.
And the world 
really 
does 
not 
know.

It can only judge. 
Compare. 
Hold to false standards
that mean nothing.

Worth is 
built 
into us. 
Each of us.

No one can 
give it, and 
no one can 
take it away.

Even when others 
convince us 
it’s gone…
it’s still there.
Waiting for us 
to come home to it.

—Nancy Norbeck
19 December 2023

A few weeks ago, I saw a clip of a young Hugh Grant clutching a gold statuette on stage, and what struck me about it was not the tux or the setting or the statue, but the look on his face, which seemed to be saying, “Surely this can’t be real. Surely one of these days, they will see through me and realize they’ve got it all wrong.”

That echoes Peter Davison’s comment to me this year about how, every time he gets a part, he waits for the phone call saying it’s all been a terrible mistake.

Especially during awards show season—and at the dawn of the new year, when we’re all encouraged to turn our perceived flaws into ways to give other people our money to “fix” us—it seems important to me to remember that we’re really all the same deep down.