Why not start our first newsletter by detailing the way we value ourselves compared to the world around us? It’s oftentimes that kind of observation that leads to a newfound epiphany, or some thought that people seem to overlook.

Where do we start?

There’s so many things in the world currently happening that It’s difficult to figure out what to write about at all, so for the first newsletter I’ve decided to write about “it all”, at least in relation to yourself. There are dire situations all across the globe, new trends every day, all from different facets of lives we may never interact with or see.

This makes it difficult for you, in your daily life to assess just how large the world around you is, or isn’t. Sometimes, the world feels small - like when you meet a long lost friend on a pure coincidence. Other times, though, it can feel so ridiculously enormous it’s impossible to fathom just how much is happening at once.

It’s this dichotomy of belief that we tend to interweave with our self-worth and self-assigned values. We often feel like we’re too small to matter, like we’re not important in relation to these usually massively scaled situations we may or may not be apart of. We fail to see the lens in which we can zoom in on that, and say, “I am big. My life may be small, but from where I stand I am big.” We make the mistake of viewing ourselves like ants, but we forget that the ant’s perspective is just as important as ours.

The journey to self-improvement is a tough battle, but one of the most fundamental tools that I’ve learned helps the greatest is the ability to perceive oneself completely and entirely objectively. To view yourself without bias, without a perfectionist whisper in your ear - or on the contrary, without a self-deprecative voice either.

Developing this skill is much easier said than done, however. One of the most primal thoughts is to perfect yourself how you see fit, and to better yourself how you see fit - all through your own, already imperfect lens, not an objective one. This unbiased view is one of the most difficult things to learn, partially because you must first learn to detach yourself from your own worth, so you can look at your entire being like it’s a painting, or a statue, and only then can you begin to refine yourself in a way that truly shapes you to be objectively better, not just better in your own perception.

I think some of the best ways to begin to practice this view is to relate yourself to another person in a healthy way. When I first began my philosophical journey of self-understanding, I had a thought that helped a twelve-year-old me become a little more objective and a lot less harsh on myself. Struggling with self-image issues, I came to a conclusion many people often don’t while I meditated one day. No one I know is really ugly. This simple thought elevated my perception of myself. If no one I know is really ugly, why would I be? The thought crossed my mind that perhaps I found ugly people beautiful, and the response was simple: If I find ugly people pretty, then surely someone would find me beautiful, too.

This newsletter, though, is not about me. It’s about you - for you. So I will call you readers today to action. If you have been struggling with self-worth or value, I want you to take some time and think about what you could do that would objectively make you feel valuable, and do it. If you need to take a walk to feel better, do it. If you’ve been on the fence about starting that newsletter because you don’t know if you can do it? Do it. Self betterment is not about just thought processes, it’s about actions, too.

With that, I leave you tonight. Though this is only my first newsletter, I do have a lot more planned for the future. I want to take a look at some social media trends, like the “Sisyphus” memes I see scattered through out my Tiktok’s For You page and analyze and discuss them further, and it will probably be a section in my next newsletter. If you have any suggestions, questions you’d like me to try and answer, or want to have some simple discourse, feel free to email me.

This has been Heliogist Weekly, I hope to write to you again soon.