WHO ARE YOU IN THE DARK?
If your family or someone you know has ever bought a house, then you know that before the loan could be approved the house had to be appraised.

A person called an appraiser will come and carefully go over the house inside and out. It is his job to assess the value of the house. He will measure all the rooms and add up the square footage. The appraiser will check the foundation, roof, wiring, plumbing and the overall condition of the house. He also compares it to those of similar size in the neighborhood. The appraiser will then put all the facts together and decide how much the house is worth.

If you were asked to do an appraisal of your own worth, how would you value yourself? The world in which you live places a value on you just about the same way an appraiser prices a house. They scope you out, check your wiring, look to see if your foundation is cracked or if your roof leaks, and compare you to other teenagers in the area. Then they hang a price tag on you.


The 4 B’s!
The measuring sticks the world most often uses to determine a persons’s worth and value are BEAUTY, brains, bucks and brawn. This is a cruel and unfair system because NO ONE can meet all the standards all the time. Even if you could, it wouldn’t be good enough because the standards keep changing. Just about the time you think you are cool enough, pretty enough, strong enough, smart enough, someone comes along and raises the standard or the price, changes the styles or the fad, makes a better grade, breaks the record and beats you out. You are left feeling miserable and empty, like you just don’t measure up.

Society says you have to be a cut above to prove you have value. BEAUTY, BRAINS, BUCKS, and BRAWN or you're a NOBODY. Most of us feel like we can’t compete, so we give up and fall into the trap of looking like, acting like, and being like everyone else, just to fit in and be accepted. But, being one of the crowd will never bring happiness that will last. When the crowd is gone and you're all alone, the only thing that will bring you peace and satisfaction is knowing you are somehow different, that you are not simply like everyone else.

Character is WHO you are and WHAT you choose to be.
IT IS WHO YOU ARE IN THE DARK WHEN NO ONE ELSE IS LOOKING. Thomas Macauley said, “The measure of a person’s real character is what he would do if he would never be found out.”