Self-Worth

March 8, 2026
By Aathreya Kadambi

I think I’ve started (a little late) to internalize how self-worth, perception, meaning, and identity really start to tie into each other.

When introspecting, it’s no doubt that my recent life has been a completely different genre than the first 20 years of my life. I’m pursuing a CS PhD (as opposed to a math one), didn’t take the Putnam exam in my senior year, never took certain math classes I have always dreamed of taking, and more. I don’t regret the outcomes of any of these decisions, but I do question my motives.

I’ve also noticed a dramatic shift in my reality: whereas I didn’t previously care as deeply about meaning, perception, and self-expression, these are things I’ve started to be increasingly concerned with.

So who am I, really, and what do I even want?

I feel like it’s easy for me to brush over these things because I’m always just going with the flow, but for a moment I wanted to stop and examine myself.

I’m writing this late at night so forgive me for the cringe.

Self-Worth and Meaning

Last year I started to let go of math being a core part of my identity and even actively fought against it at times. This was because of:

• a (possibly misinformed) disillusionment with certain aspects of modern math,
• desire to fit in with peers, who at the time were oriented towards computer science and data science,
• feeling that math on its own could lead me to isolation,
• wanting to find meaning that was more tangible,
• wanting to get away from a public perception of math that I saw as limiting.

All of this was even visible in my blog posts such as king of khmer music and a new era. These deeply confused posts aimed to express a desire to distance myself from my previously math-embedded identity. And with more and more recent posts, I’ve been growing even more distant in a really odd way that I never previously imagined clearly.

In the process, I’ve been forced to redefine who I am and where I derive meaning. It’s become much more clear to me now that math always did form a large chunk of my own self-worth and meaning, and it’s not something I intended to leave behind. And on top of that, it’s been both a curse and a blessing that it’s my language for expressing appreciation and interest. These days, I’ve realized that I can learn other languages too.

I wanted a more flexible identity, but what I didn’t realize was that this would push me towards a weaker sense of self-worth and a lack of meaning.

Perception

It’s been interesting to me that this shift in my own values and sense of self-worth has completely changed the way I interact with and see the world.

I became more enamoured with certain material aspects of life, like food, drinks, and dance that I didn’t previously pay as much attention to. I also started to read more on sociology and politics, along with general books, in search for things that would clarify my identity. In particular, the identity I wanted had to satisfy some constraints, like being “cool” in a all-satisfying way, relateable, and down to earth.

Though I didn’t think too carefully about these things in the moment, I think all of these changes were spurred by my desire for something impossible: an identity that was simultaneously clear and strong, yet flexible enough to give me personal freedom.

It also made me think… the way I’m percieved by others is likely shaped by their own sense of self-worth, and what I say will always be interpretted from that point of view. And likewise for myself, the way I always percieved and appreciated others was based on my personal meaning and self-worth. Because of that, maybe I missed seeing others for who they really were, and what they really wanted.

Identity

Now that I’ve sort of detached (in name, not in spirit) from the things that previously defined who I was, I’m left re-defining my identity in my own way, which is actually a pretty good place to be in, but I guess it still leaves the big questions unanswered. Deeply tied to my identity and self-worth is where I want to derive meaning and my personal values.

Overall, distancing myself from my own identity for a while has been very revealing. I think it’s helped me see myself in a more objective light, and allow meaning to arise intentionally rather than force it through an outdated self-narrative.