What is self esteem? Why do we like ourselves some day and not so much the other days?
When i look back, i like myself more on days when i am productive, whatever productivity is in my opinion, when I was younger it meant studying, as a teacher it means teaching a really well delivered lesson, at home it can mean a day I cleaned up the house cooked good food and generally took care of every thing I think I should.
We dislike ourselves on days we deviate from our ideas of what we should be.
Of course the word should troubles me too. Who defines what I should or should not do? On the surface it is tempting to say I do. But do I ?
Aren't my ideas of what I should do based on other people's expectations of me? I want everyone to like me so i want to do things that they want, so that they can like me and I can in turn feel better about my self? Most of the times I suspect that to be the case. Most of our actions are need based, my need to prove something - to you to myself.
We are taught to take pride in our achievements. I make a truckload of money, I look pretty, I got an A+ on my test. No body praises me when I flunk a class, when I make a mess, lose my job. infact I might just get yelled at. Over time I begin to learn what desirable and undesirable behaviours are and to the extent that i desire approval I begin to align myself with the so called right actions, till I reach the point where I chastise myself when I deviate from them. I kick myself, I condemn myself, I hate myself. As life gets busier I never really sit down to question the validity of my own beliefs. I accept them as true and just and keep striving to live up to them. I am not trying to say that nothing is right or wrong, ofcourse it is, it has to be. But how can I ever know, what is and what isn't, apart from what was told to me? How can i begin to love myself outside of my public image?
In order to love myself, I must do two things.
1. Figure out who I am? What my deepest desires / motivations are. Why do I do the things I do? What is my MO in life? What are the patterns? How have I reacted - repeatedly - to external life challenges and situations? What does that say about the kind of person I am? What are my core strengths and weaknesses?
and along side that, I must ask myself
2. What are my values in life? What do I think qualifies as right action? Yes, it stands to argument that there is no such thing as original thought, still, to whatever extent I can reasonably be sure of having thought for myself, I must think, and come to my own understanding of right and wrong. Most people would want to do the right thing - right in their own paradigm.
Having done that, I might sit down and compare the two pictures. To the extent that the person I am aligns with the person I think I should be I will find I like myself and to the extent that I do not I will loathe my self. Which is fine in the beginning.
But then I must take up the harder task. I must look more closely at the person I am and begin to change my ideas of the 'person I think I should be'. You see, even though the term self - analysis implies it is an analysis for the self, I find that most of us are unable to be completely honest, or to be completely with the self. Its almost as if someone is always watching. We are always playing for an audience. So may be I find that I have been too harsh in my expectations, may be it is time to modify them, that may be life can still go on if I am not a meek submissive obedient wife so to speak. That I can love myself for speaking up and giving my husband a hard time for buying those stocks that I told him not to. After all he never said he wanted to marry a fifties hindi film heroine. The sooner I can take that off my should list the better it is.
Personally, over years, I came to realize that all this while I had been defining myself with what I do, that I had limited my self to my actions. I have now begun to see that if the source of my self esteem is my job, my clothes, my hair, then it is a precarious source. I am asking for trouble now aren't I? I am not saying that my actions should not be a source of my self esteem, if I can do something well, then I should be proud of my abilities, but that cannot be the only source. What can be? I don't know.
All I know is that the more I can focus on who I am past and present, and begin to understand my self, the better I feel about myself. Then I worry less about what others see when they look at me, I don't care much, because I know who I am and I have made my peace with that. That the more I can disassociate my self worth with my current situation, the better I like myself.
In this moment my hair is disheveled and unkempt, but if I wash and dry them right they have the potential to look quite presentable, however, right now, it is more important for me to cook food and clean up my house, hence it is perfectly acceptable for me to not spend time on my hair. Which means not thinking about them, not fretting about them, not feeling bad about them. Because I do not define my SELF with my hair, a 'bad hair day' does not become a 'feeling bad about me' day. Okay wait, some days it does, because on those days I do define my self with my hair, but don't you go around telling any body :P
When i look back, i like myself more on days when i am productive, whatever productivity is in my opinion, when I was younger it meant studying, as a teacher it means teaching a really well delivered lesson, at home it can mean a day I cleaned up the house cooked good food and generally took care of every thing I think I should.
We dislike ourselves on days we deviate from our ideas of what we should be.
Of course the word should troubles me too. Who defines what I should or should not do? On the surface it is tempting to say I do. But do I ?
Aren't my ideas of what I should do based on other people's expectations of me? I want everyone to like me so i want to do things that they want, so that they can like me and I can in turn feel better about my self? Most of the times I suspect that to be the case. Most of our actions are need based, my need to prove something - to you to myself.
We are taught to take pride in our achievements. I make a truckload of money, I look pretty, I got an A+ on my test. No body praises me when I flunk a class, when I make a mess, lose my job. infact I might just get yelled at. Over time I begin to learn what desirable and undesirable behaviours are and to the extent that i desire approval I begin to align myself with the so called right actions, till I reach the point where I chastise myself when I deviate from them. I kick myself, I condemn myself, I hate myself. As life gets busier I never really sit down to question the validity of my own beliefs. I accept them as true and just and keep striving to live up to them. I am not trying to say that nothing is right or wrong, ofcourse it is, it has to be. But how can I ever know, what is and what isn't, apart from what was told to me? How can i begin to love myself outside of my public image?
In order to love myself, I must do two things.
1. Figure out who I am? What my deepest desires / motivations are. Why do I do the things I do? What is my MO in life? What are the patterns? How have I reacted - repeatedly - to external life challenges and situations? What does that say about the kind of person I am? What are my core strengths and weaknesses?
and along side that, I must ask myself
2. What are my values in life? What do I think qualifies as right action? Yes, it stands to argument that there is no such thing as original thought, still, to whatever extent I can reasonably be sure of having thought for myself, I must think, and come to my own understanding of right and wrong. Most people would want to do the right thing - right in their own paradigm.
Having done that, I might sit down and compare the two pictures. To the extent that the person I am aligns with the person I think I should be I will find I like myself and to the extent that I do not I will loathe my self. Which is fine in the beginning.
But then I must take up the harder task. I must look more closely at the person I am and begin to change my ideas of the 'person I think I should be'. You see, even though the term self - analysis implies it is an analysis for the self, I find that most of us are unable to be completely honest, or to be completely with the self. Its almost as if someone is always watching. We are always playing for an audience. So may be I find that I have been too harsh in my expectations, may be it is time to modify them, that may be life can still go on if I am not a meek submissive obedient wife so to speak. That I can love myself for speaking up and giving my husband a hard time for buying those stocks that I told him not to. After all he never said he wanted to marry a fifties hindi film heroine. The sooner I can take that off my should list the better it is.
Personally, over years, I came to realize that all this while I had been defining myself with what I do, that I had limited my self to my actions. I have now begun to see that if the source of my self esteem is my job, my clothes, my hair, then it is a precarious source. I am asking for trouble now aren't I? I am not saying that my actions should not be a source of my self esteem, if I can do something well, then I should be proud of my abilities, but that cannot be the only source. What can be? I don't know.
All I know is that the more I can focus on who I am past and present, and begin to understand my self, the better I feel about myself. Then I worry less about what others see when they look at me, I don't care much, because I know who I am and I have made my peace with that. That the more I can disassociate my self worth with my current situation, the better I like myself.
In this moment my hair is disheveled and unkempt, but if I wash and dry them right they have the potential to look quite presentable, however, right now, it is more important for me to cook food and clean up my house, hence it is perfectly acceptable for me to not spend time on my hair. Which means not thinking about them, not fretting about them, not feeling bad about them. Because I do not define my SELF with my hair, a 'bad hair day' does not become a 'feeling bad about me' day. Okay wait, some days it does, because on those days I do define my self with my hair, but don't you go around telling any body :P
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