How can one find his/her self worth in today’s world when it seems that if you weren’t SOF, you are just average?

I was just average as well but guess what? All my people returned from deployments still vertical. Does the media look to me for my views on world events? Nope but then again half of those media persons would just respond with a confused look on their face as they would have no clue about what I was saying anyway. Your self worth is what you make it. I honorably served and retired after 20 years. That is my self worth.

You'll never find it comparing yourself to a Green Beret , you can find it simply by being the best you can be as a soldier and top 1% of grunt's in the military ,push yourself to be the best , learn from the best to be the best just don't get a big head about it be humble it's about the willingness to do more than other's without looking for a reward never be satisfied instead always look for improvement

Not everyone can be a Ranger, Green Beret, SEAL, Submariner for the same reason a rutabaga can't be a pineapple: they're just not made that way. There's nothing wrong with that.

Sometimes we "average" folks have to take the jobs no one else wants and show "the boss" what we are made of. That's the way I found to compete against the "heroes and experts." I know who I am and I really don't care who they are. By working my way up, instead of having it handed to me because I was "special," I learned much more than the ones I felt I had to compete against. I found that in the end, the "A" students taught the "B" students who ended up working for the "C" students. Don't compete against anyone but yourself!

In my view, it comes down to the realization or fulfillment one's seeks with regard to their own talents and potentialities, a drive or need present in everyone compared or contrasted to your career later at 15 years. As a young snuffy, I too wanted to "eat snakes, run in the "suck" and be all "hooah". There was nothing wrong with that but as time passed I realized there was more to life than "learning to love the suck, I wish it could suck more". Being IN the military makes one MORE, so much MORE than average. You "play" in the World league and sometimes there are folks who are needed with special skill sets that in brutal honesty, NOT ALL POSSESS. Even within the SOF there are those who are "average". I spent time in SOF, back in the day before it was publicly "hooah". I liked the life and I loved the training, but as the years go by and you look up in the sky, while laying in the suck and you see the zoomies going home to sleep in a hot bunk and have a hot "A" meal, you realize there is more. You find your self-worth by literally and intellectually honestly seeking to improve your skill set within your own Speciality. In the old saying "Be All You Can Be" and BE the Warrior Ethos.

Don't sell yourself short , if you think you did your part for the country and your service, and finished the time you signed up for, you're as good as them. Remember your time proudly and how you matured because of it and what you did. Oh yea, and go register with the VA

Just remember that all the SoF hype is done by the media and Hollywood. Vets don't really care what you did as long as you did whatever your MOS is and you got your Honorable Discharge DD-214. Nobody is special and nobody is average in the military. I was a 67N40 (15 something today) and am damn proud of my time as a UH-1 (and multiple aviation MOS's) crew chief/mechanic/platoon sgt. Do your job to the best of your ability and be proud of what you do.

You are average because it the level where you feel countable therefore don’t put yourself in that category by lowering your standards.
One is his or her own sales person when it come to be accepted in this world, n’t by lowering it self when you are a outstanding product the need to sales yourself. Hollywood doesn’t control my Destiny, I control my destiny & sales my self as I see it.

Finding your worth in what you do is a dead end. Finding your worth through what others think of you even more so. I found mine through my relationship with Jesus Christ.

Let me explain briefly: human worth within both Judaism and Christianity is founded upon the concept that we humans are created in the image and likeness of God. Christianity extends that even further by proclaiming that each and every human being is so valuable to God, that even if there was only one man or woman who needed a savior on this planet, He would have sent His Son to die for that one lost person.

This is why within Western Civilization — which is founded upon Judeo-Christian ethics and morality — murder is the most heinous of crimes because it is a selfish act taking away God's highest give — life — from God's highest creation — another human being.

Once you remove God from the equation of our existence, the value of a human life falls to zero because we are thereafter reduced to being yet another animal vying for existence on this planet.

So even though I was a marginal troop at best while I was in the Army, I met Jesus there. And over the last 45 years, He has transformed my me from that basic booger-head who was rebellious, arrogant, and entirely self-centered into who I am today: a Christian minister, theologian, and published writer having the love and respect of my family, friends, and peers. That transformation was through the free gift of His unmerited favor motivated by His unfathomable love and delivered at a cost to Him that we can only scratch the surface of imagining.

This might set off some folks and it may even be against the rules here, but there it is!

I was proud of everything I did I don’t care what others in society think is cool. Your not average if you do your job to the best of your ability. I’ve been around too many special ops that couldn’t make it in a regular unit. Hollywood paints a pretty picture, you know in your experience as well as they do, our job and theirs isn’t as glamorous as Hollywood makes it look.