A Spark by Innocent Mwatsikesimbe from The Vision, chapter 2

You already have value — knowledge, skill, honesty, kindness, and the rest. Worth is narrower. It is what those attributes amount to once you put them to work: “All attributes have value, but they have worth if they are used productively.”

Innocent finds the whole idea hiding in a spelling. Self-growth and self-worth differ by one letter, g, and in his mind that g stands for go. You go and do something; that is how you grow and come to have worth. Nobody hands it over — you are worth what you “think and make yourself out to be”. He even keeps an equation for it: this year’s worth minus last year’s, read as progress or regression.

He treats it as upkeep, too. Life does not stop attacking your sense of worth, so the repair has to be regular. He wakes each day, reminds himself of the progress he has made, and tells himself plainly what he is worth.