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Self-Esteem
Defined: a confidence and satisfaction in oneself. We can get a little more information on this word combination from the thesaurus. There we find that self-esteem is related to pride, self-contentment and self-satisfaction. And what is pride in this case? It can be seen as a reasonable or justifiable sense of one’s own worth or position.
Self-esteem can be quite a complex tapestry woven together with threads of various qualities and from a variety of sources. Some of the various threads may be seen as needs, wants, desires, emotions, feelings, values, perceptions, neuroses, assumptions, conformity, beliefs, and autonomy. The source of the threads can come from within or without oneself.
As with any tapestry, the quality of the threads used and how it is woven together, influences the look and quality of the tapestry itself. If the workmanship of the tapestry is of poor quality, it may look cheap and will probably not take long for the tapestry to unravel and fall apart. If good, then the work can be quite enduring and have a satisfying affect upon the beholder. Of course a merchant usually charges more for the higher quality tapestry.
Let’s take a look at some of the “threads” I mentioned above. All life forms have needs. A need can be seen as a physical or mental requirement for the well-being of a particular life form. Some good examples of physical needs for practically all Earth life forms, including us humans, are food and water. Without those, our life forms will unravel and fall apart. We will cease to live without them. The quality of the food and water we take into our bodies affects our quality of life. So, ideally we should consume only food and water of high quality.
If we are capable of meeting all of our needs then we have a great beginning for weaving ourselves a high quality tapestry. This will go a long way towards having confidence, contentment and satisfaction in ourselves.
Unfortunately for most humans, there is a lack of understanding about what is required for their well-being. To make things more challenging, some have said that no society promotes behavior that satisfies all human needs. And to make it even more interesting, probably most people are taught to confuse wants and desires with actual needs. If we were to satisfy these wants and desires which are often based upon what the society promotes, we may actually act against fulfilling our real needs.
It seems then that the tapestry woven together in most societies is of dubious quality, with some societies using a higher count of quality threads than others. What is the source of the lower quality threads? I suggest that it is the learned set of customs within a society, and the inaccurate assumptions about what a human is and what s/he needs.
If it is true that most people have unsatisfied needs, then that would probably explain why most people seem to be discontented with themselves and their lives. Discontentment may lead to a lack of confidence in oneself and a lower perception of one’s worth. This seems to be especially true when the discontented person compares him- or herself to another person that appears to be satisfied and contented.
Another human need, a mental one this time, seems to be for us to be minimally accepted by other people. This appears to be such a strong need for most of us that we may even resort to extreme measures to be accepted by others. If this need is not met because we experience rejection by others then we may exhibit negative emotions such as anxiety, sadness, hurt feelings, and jealousy. And at the extreme end of being socially excluded one may act out in both self-defeating and antisocial behavior.
One common outcome of not having one’s needs fulfilled is the development of neurosis. Neurosis can be defined as an internal, nonorganic barrier to need fulfillment. Ironically, we often act as the barrier to fulfilling our own real needs.
How is it possible that we are our own barrier to need fulfillment? It goes something like this. We are raised within a culture that has unquestioned assumptions and beliefs about how things should be. We have a need to be accepted by the people in this culture. We therefore control our behavior enough to conform to these assumptions and beliefs in order to be accepted. The assumptions and beliefs set up the values that people within the culture strive to emulate. The more that we can exhibit these values the more valuable to others we appear to be, and the higher our self-esteem tends to become.
Interestingly, we are not normally conscious of the assumptions, beliefs, and our conformity to them. And in the process of needing to be valued by others most of us are automatically monitoring our relational value to others. If we have entered the neurotic zone, then we are constantly measuring ourselves against others, even in situations which do not call for it. The neurotic person seems to look at each life event as a moment as to whether s/he is accepted or rejected by others regardless of meeting his or her other needs.
In our comparison to others, if we exhibit the accepted values and are therefore accepted, we have good self-esteem. If we do not exhibit the values and are therefore rejected, then we tend to have low self-esteem. At least that is how it normally operates. Regardless of whether we have high or low self-esteem in this case, we are often overriding or ignoring many of our real needs in the process of gaining approval from others.
In this comparison game we often do not take care of our real needs. And while we are playing the game we give authority over ourselves to others. We give away our power. When we give away our power we are at the mercy of others. Sometimes we may be accepted, sometimes not. Sometimes we feel good about ourselves, sometimes not. A person’s life may appear to be like a yo-yo spinning in different directions, with other people and events controlling the string.
When you closely look at the situation are you really enjoying yourself? I suggest that if a person is continually concerned about how others perceive her, then she is effectively excluding herself from enjoyment and therefore real satisfaction. One may even become so self-centered about becoming accepted that nobody and nothing is valued unless it advances one’s interests in being valued and accepted by others.
While understandably society requires certain rules of operation so that people remain civil, many of the values taken for granted may not be appropriate for meeting all of our real needs. What can we do about this situation? The best place to start seems to be in developing an awareness of what our real needs are. In addition we can become conscious of the assumptive belief system within which we reside. Once we know what the needs are then we can make valid choices of our behavior in light of those needs while striving to accept ourselves. We can socialize with others who also are becoming conscious and aware, therefore meeting our need of being accepted by others.
When we regain our autonomy and power then we can truly have high esteem, an esteem that is not subject to the whims of society. As we develop this autonomy and satisfy our real needs we will discover that one of the most important needs is unconditional love, which is really what you were seeking when you sought acceptance from others. You learn to love yourself, and through loving yourself you can then truly love others, which in turn benefits everyone because then you can act together to meet everyone’s real needs.Related Articles:
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