Creeping Paralysis: What to Value When You Feel Worthless

(A Lighthearted Look at Self-Doubt That May Help You)

Who will read this? What’s it worth? Hell, what am I worth? I can’t do it! (Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash)

I feel it creeping throughout my veins, this paralysis. Oh, not literal paralysis. This malady manifests in my inability to engage in the creative process to the point of useful production.

There it is! Those words of useful production constitute one of the contributing factors to my deteriorating condition. Even as I write those words, I realize my intent and association with them imply an income resulting from my work. If people pay for something, they must value it in some way.

Am I producing work others value? I made forty-five cents last month with Medium. Does that show value? (I don’t think I can feel my left leg!)

This leads me to consider another question: should I seek what people value and then write about those things in order to make my work valuable? Who are those people, anyway? (I don’t think I can move my right leg now!)

I wonder if the topics I write about and the way I write about them are so worthless that only forty-five cents worth of people reads them. (I’m not sure, but I don’t think I can sense my genitals!)

As I lose myself in thought of providing relative value to audiences, I start questioning what I…