Dear Monica:

You recently wrote to me that I was 100% correct when I asked you about your values being the following:

Reputation, that is how highly other people think of you. This is why you attend K University, because of its high reputation. This is why you value brand name clothes and purses and such, why you valued Gyunnie as much as you did, because he was a local in K, a Korean, the head of the student council.

Problem with seeing your worth, your value in reputation, in brand names and such, is that there will always be someone with more money, more brand name items, better grades, etc. Another problem is that the reputation you hold at one point is easily lost. Gyunnie left K and as you wrote before, he is a nobody there (your word).

Self worth, better if it is based on something other than reputation. You want to no longer feel like a failure, that is, to believe that you are valuable, correct? Well, maybe the way is to change what you value.

But that would be to go against your family teachings, against societal convention and against what you deeply believe (100%, your stated percentage)- and there is nothing I can do about what you deeply believe, nor is there anything I can do about what your family or society believes.

I figure, if valuing reputation works for you, brings you peace of mind, then hold on to  it. But if it doesn’t, then it is up to you to reconsider, evaluate, perhaps.

anita