... becoming a worthwhile human being … (ODAT, August 3)
An apparently shockingly unmodern take on the question.
It implies that the starting material is a not worthwhile human being.
Point 1: Slathering love on me when I was still chiefly occupied with self-centred thoughts and uncooperative with others, in the form of telling me I was 'already perfect' (or some such platitude), is an attempt at spiritual bypass. Even I did not buy that. Straight to the rainbow. No passing Go. No collecting two hundred dollars. Spraying on the scent without a bath. My fundamental, as it were theoretical, worth was not in question, but there was no good pretending I was already there, that that was already actualised and accessible. Inventory and change were required.
Point 2: Worthwhile. Worth the while. Worth the time being spend on 'living', although it's questionable whether it was living. It was more existing. A good distinction is made: Existence is just taking up space, consuming resources, being needy and sucking in all goodness from around, and swallowing it down, down, to the place from where it's never seen again. Such an existence is not worth its whiling away. A life, by contrast, is abundance, productive, creative, and cooperative. The point of the Twelve Steps is arguably, in part, to move from existing to living.