What is self-esteem?
What is self-esteem?
It seems to be something that is essential for having a healthy psyche. I've read that people with all sorts of mental disorders have a low sense of self-esteem. I lack having a healthy self-esteem.
Is it overrated? How does one build having a strong sense of self-esteem?
Thanks.
It seems to be something that is essential for having a healthy psyche. I've read that people with all sorts of mental disorders have a low sense of self-esteem. I lack having a healthy self-esteem.
Is it overrated? How does one build having a strong sense of self-esteem?
Thanks.
Comments (84)
Anyway, the goal is usually described as attaining a healthy sense of self. Which is well and good.
But what is not usually factored into the equation is that in our culture the "sense of self" has been growing exponentially from a very early age. We are constantly encouraged to "be somebody" and stand out from our peers. The marketing of countless products starts even before the baby has been born. All of this is not a totally negative thing. There are some upsides. But it seems mostly the effect is a bloated and unwieldy sense of self. It feels like a lot of heavy baggage that one cannot put down. This is very different from arrogance, pride, or the usual characteristics of egotism. Using my own experiences as a guide, the feelings could range from confusion, withdrawal and depression to a manic instability and rage.
I now compare a balanced sense of self to maintaining an ideal weight (whatever that may be). Not to sound harshly judgmental, but when it comes to the "self", many people are carrying around a lot of excess weight and baggage. I include myself in that estimation. And it includes a lot of people who are kind, intelligent, hard-working, creative, etc. Another comparison would be the overflow of possessions and stuff crammed into our closets, basements, and storage lockers. We feel empty so we overeat and overspend. That is fairly obvious. The hidden addiction is to be constantly adding layers to our self, adding new and exciting personae, to make one feel more interesting. And the market smells an angle. The "Brand called Me" has been around a long time now.
So to continue the weight metaphor... when one tries to become healthier, no one says they want to lose ALL their weight. That is either impossible, an exaggeration, or anorexic. Likewise, the goal is not to lose ALL sense of self. That is probably impossible, and if it is possible it would be very unbalanced at least. The motto which sums this up and seems to help me is "lose yourself, lose your problems". This may be a bit succinct and pithy, but the gist is the less surface area the self has, the less area there is for concerns, worries, and problems to attach to. Then we can focus on the situations in life that need our attention and energy. There are lots of them. So to cut out the self-created (though inadvertent) ones can truly be a weight off our backs.
Accepting and liking one's self. A sense of self-worth
People who are low achievers can have healthy self-esteem, and high achievers can have an unhealthy sense of unworthiness. One has to accept what one is, whatever that is. This is a truism, of course, but truisms are... true. It is also true that people can have ridiculously over-inflated egos and estimations of their self-worth which 99.9% of everybody else won't agree with.
Part of the structure of what we call depression is a perfectionist drive on one hand, and a beating one's self over the head for failing to be perfect. This vicious cycle drives down one's sense of self-esteem.
It doesn't follow that accepting one's self means never having to try to be better. One can accept one's self, and work towards self-improvement. But one will want to avoid perfection. Very, very, very few athletes (like gymnasts) ever get a perfect 10. Nice when it happens, but one doesn't have to aim for a 10 in one's personal life.
Humans are imperfect, rough-cut, at least somewhat irrational beings, Many of us have unfortunate histories which are going to get in our way all the way to the grave. That's why self-acceptance is important: we're knotty pine, cracked porcelain, faded purple, rusted steel. Never perfect, usually not all-around excellent. We can't accept others until we have accepted ourselves.
Self-esteem is a psychological power structure that motivates the organism by reassuring it as a significant and important symbol in the world. More often than not self-esteem is derived from external means, such as family, friends, co-workers, countries, and even metaphysical theories.
The number one job of the ego when it is not focused on immediate survival requirements is the constant reassurance of the validity and importance of itself, oftentimes in a vane attempt to escape death and live forever as an immortal hero archetype. Terror Management Theory.
Quoting Question
No, in fact it's a highly necessary and comforting thing to have and it's something I wish I had more of.
Quoting Question
By surrounding oneself with supportive external factors (which may or may not be authentic) or by attempting to come to grips with oneself and find motivation from the inside. In fact the trouble tends to arise when one realizes that one's support group is filled with idiots and idiotic ideas, as one's very identity is called into question.
Ego boundaries in a person with high self-esteem are well defined along with a deep understanding of one's natural talents and limitations, which brings me to my main point. The person with an ideal sense of self-worth is the stoic. A stoic knows that there are things within his/her control and makes sure that he does not feel inadequate or incompetent when trying to look after things out of his/her control.
Essentially a stoic is the ideal towards one ought to strive in understanding the things within their control and the things out of their control.
On the other hand, is was Nietzsche who argued that the overman would have an objective and realistic view of their own existence. Nietzsche was not a stoic.
There are no such things as an "objective view of their own existence."
If one believes so then they will be inclined to start believing in their superiority over other groups of people or their absolute beliefs about themselves. Dangerous stuff.
But that wouldn't be very objective, would it? Nietzsche is calling for us to become poets of our own lives and try to understand who we are, like who we really are.
Confidence in your competence is the phrase that immediately sprung to my mind. So I agree.
Your subject line asks what self-esteem is, but that doesn't seem to be what you're really wondering. After all, what it is isn't much of a mystery. It's simply an evaluation of one's own worth and the subsequent emotional, attitudinal and behavioral disposition related to the evaluation.
Anyway, you seem to be more interested in how one might go about achieving a positive self-esteem. One of the most important tactics is to "work on yourself." That is, work on your goals, work towards accomplishments including career goals, improve and expand your education, improve your health, your hygiene, your appearance, your home, your interpersonal skills, how you manage your time and what you put your attention on, etc. If you conscientiously, persistently work on all of those things, you'll achieve a more positive self-esteem, and you'll exude self-confidence.
Most of your suggestions for areas to work on appear to have far more to do with how you appear to others rather than to yourself. Surely healthy self-esteem gives not a feather for externals such as 'appearance'.
It affects how most people feel about themselves and how they interact with other people, which has a significant impact on how most people feel about themselves. The things I mentioned are correlated with building self-esteem, for whatever reason they are. If one has low self-esteem, one can work on those things and increase one's self-esteem. If one doesn't want to bother then one is welcome to retain low self-esteem. It's up to the individual in question.
Ahh, a perverted form of the naturalistic fallacy as I understand it. However, this does not seem to be an exclusive thing that philosophers do...
Take for example the noble Buddhist or some other poor bastard such as a good Samaritan. They place great value in certain beliefs about how one ought to behave and as such center their self-esteem on fulfilling those central beliefs to their respective labels of being a good Buddhist or Samaritan.
Personally, I find all this relativism quite confusing and think that if one ought to build a healthy self-esteem, then they ought to recognize what they can or can not do. But, then again I'm biased on the matter as I've spent a whole lot of time chanting in my head Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius.
I took the liberty of underlining all the "work" phrases you have included in your reply. How is it that work itself is something that will bring... happiness (as I understand having a high self-esteem entails a sense of happiness or contentment with one's own life)? This seems to be something that many people in the West do and yet end up never feeling happy or satisfied with their lives.
If self-esteem is dependent on what others think of one's self, then why not just say fuck it and disregard what other's think about one's self? I don't know what to call this state of mind... At the same time, it expresses individualism and one's disregard for society. There is a dissonance there if anyone has noticed.
That was rather my point. High self -esteem might lead to happiness - lets suppose. But if Ithink I am the Good Samaritan, or the uber-mensch or whatever turns me on, when in fact I am simply a deluded and arrogant little shit, then my self-esteem is not 'true'. Such fantasies actively prevent one from taking those steps, 's or some other program, that will lead to possibly being less of a shit.
High self-esteem leads to the complacency that problems are all down to someone else; probably it's a conspiracy ...
Of course, if it just so happens that I am a great philosopher or the prettiest pensioner on the block, then it is only sensible to acknowledge this.
Understood, however, you seem to contradict yourself with asserting that there is such a thing as a 'true' sense of self-esteem. Where have I missed your point? As you may have noticed I have a disregard for the concept of 'self-esteem' and personally think it is a fictional concept that originates from some sociological/normative/cultural type of reasoning, which needs deflating.
May I ask...
What is the relationship between being an individual and having a high sense of self-esteem and at the same time being of some utility to society? Are these two concepts at odds?
One can see the torture that one goes through when confronting one's self with having/maintaining a high sense of self-esteem.
The Book of Job.
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.
The Confessions of St. Augustine
Sorry to arrive late to your post; but, I slept over what you said and have some questions that need answering. I am so self-important in that regard, ey?
Would you say that depression came first or is this a matter of society inflicting pain and suffering on an individual to live up to some standards that we collectively believe in?
The dissonance between shared beliefs and one's own self can be quite burdensome.
Yes, I think we agree. All I mean by 'true', is that there is presumably a fact of the matter. Perhaps I am, as it happens, more clever than average, or kinder than most, or whatever. Not that there is any necessity for me to esteem that.
And there is a bit of a secret here; I only need high self-esteem if I have low self-esteem. I convince myself of my potency because I feel impotent. Hey, have you read any Alice Miller? She goes into the origins and problems of grandiosity (the left hand of depression) quite well.
Interesting. The last book I finished and meditated over was Viktor Frankl's, Man's Search for Meaning. It was a nice book; but, very daft in terms of not addressing our emotions while instead focusing on sheer rationality.
I will definitely give Miller a try. I have a feeling that grandiosity is born out of suffering; but, I digress.
Thanks.
First, you're not reading "work" so that it's simply denoting something like "employment," are you? It's "working on oneself," rather.
Why is it that working on oneself brings about better self-esteem? The short answer is simply that there's plenty of empirical evidence that they're correlated. What I'm saying isn't novel. It's well-known in psychology.
Why would working on oneself be correlated with bolstered self-esteem? Well, it's surely simply because lower self-esteem is a result of self-assessments where one feels that one is underachieving, perhaps wasting one's time, not fulfilling one's potential, not as good as one could be, as well as reactions from other people that emphasize those assessments, etc. That's basically what low self-esteem is. So working on oneself gives one a sense of accomplishment/achievement that counters all of that. It also bolsters confidence--confidence isn't exactly the same thing, but they're correlated, and both factors change the way that others react to you.
You're saying that you have empirical evidence of a lot of people working on themselves but having self-esteem problems? What evidence are you talking about?
Anyway, if you have low self-esteem and you want to change that, try working on yourself in the ways I mentioned. It's not going to hurt anything.
Yes, but I am talking about something that comes before work/working on one's self. Namely that there is a certain goal towards which one strives. The realization (or if you prefer, 'self-actualization') of that goal, through working on it, would lead to a higher self-esteem.
However, given that people have insatiable wants and desires, I find it doubtful that people will ever attain a lasting and enduring sense of high self-esteem. Meaning that 'self-esteem' is a rabbit one can chase after; but, never really attain it.
Now, that you have climbed the ladder you can throw it away or offer it to some other fellow.
That's actually not what I'm saying, by the way. It's not necessary that you complete goals for this. Just that you work towards them. Some goals you may never reach. They may be impractical. They might require things you can't control, including a bit of "luck." Working towards goals is working on oneself and it's enough to bolster self-esteem and give a sense of accomplishment. One positive upshot of this is that even working on oneself for a day will begin to help. You're not going to reach the vast majority of goals in one day. You don't need to. As long as you're taking proactive steps towards them it helps.
It's a never-ending process. If you stop working on yourself, your self-esteem will start to go down. Haven't you heard folks talk about someone "letting themselves go"? This is what they're talking about. Those folks "fell off the wagon" effecitvely. At any rate, it's worth a shot if you'd like better self-esteem, no? Or maybe you really like complaining/being miserable. Some people do.
The cowboys inflict some pain and suffering on errant members of the herd. There are standards that we collectively believe in. Where depression comes in depends on the individual. For some, depression was in the beginning, is now, and might seem like 'ever shall be' (unless they happen to find some effective drugs, therapy, get more light in the winter, change their life...) For others it is a result of getting herded where they really don't want to go and being harassed by the cowboys too much.
Dissonance between shared beliefs and the self is a given for most people, unless one happens to be the Ideal Type that so fits society's expectations that there is no dissonance. Some people are, most people aren't. Dissonance can serve as an impediment or an imperative, depending. Some say "Conform." I say, "Join the Resistance."
Quoting unenlightened
One needs a reasonable degree of self-esteem whether one has it or not. The cost of not having enough self-esteem is generally costly for the individual, The cost of having way too much self-esteem is often born by society (after they get elected president).
I disagree. Why does one need it? For what? Can one not tend the garden or wash the dishes without?
Your response just seems obtuse, blunt, and coarse. Self-esteem is a good feeling about the good of one's being. My guess is that you have it and have no intention of abandoning it.
Using your logic...
Quoting unenlightened
...I would assume the only reason you see no need for self esteem is that you already have it.
Well of course, I myself see myself as acute, sharp and fine, 8-) but my own condition is entirely beside the point, except just now to illustrate how put-downs tend to provoke put-ups. But I repeat, personally, since you make it so, why should I care whether I am obtuse or acute, blunt or sharp, coarse or fine? How does this good feeling or bad feeling enable or prevent me from posting in whatever manner I post?
The reasons you'd care about those sorts of things don't usually have anything to do with posting on message boards. They usually have to do with whether you can feed and clothe and house yourself, whether you can find companionship including romantic companionship, whether you can reach any material goals you might have (including things like career, hobby, travel etc. goals) and so on.
I'm usually not inclined to quote spiritual slogans but how about: "A willingness to fail well" ?
If self esteem is related to competence, is there still a willingness to test that competence with the risk of finding the limit and failing? Failure can provide valuable learning opportunity yet it can also wreak havoc on self-esteem. From what I've gathered it's unavoidable to judge one's own status physically (we are constantly updated about the status of our bodies and if there's anything amiss we're bound to respond and try and move toward homoeostasis) and I would not suppose there's no mental equivalent of such a mechanism (including a need to "feed" to keep things working).
Though homoeostasis can be seen as something which has a form of permeance, it requires effort to keep it up. Why would you assume a certain level of self-esteem can be attained after which there's nothing to accomplish? That implicitly suggests a desire for complete mastery, I would not see such a desire as unhealthy yet assuming there can be some sort of 100% accomplishment where a failure to attain it affects self-esteem in a negative way 'might' be unhealthy / unreasonable.
So whereas I would agree with "confidence in competence", I'm inclined to add a desire for increasing competence. It's usually not so much failure which can wreak havoc with our self-esteem (we'd get depressed just learning something new) but rather a self observed lack of upwards potential.
Yes, I probably have lots of goals, one of the least of which is to compose posts. It was an example. But I don't see why I have to be thinking about myself all the time and whether I am high or low on the esteem measure. Surely, I just have to do whatever is required to achieve the goal in question, buy a plane ticket, apply for a job, or whatever. Telling myself I'm a cool dude only helps if there is another voice, BC's or my own, telling me I'm obtuse or incompetent or something that might make me give up my goal without doing the necessary.
Yeah, I wouldn't know that either. We'd probably need to ask someone who claimed something like that.
Re the rest of your comment, what I was getting at was that one would care if one had those qualities (obtuse, etc.) when one can't feed, house, etc. oneself. In that situation, one needs to figure out what the problem is.
Or more generally: one would (or should) care about possible flaws, negative assessments etc., at least in the eyes of other people, when one can not achieve the things that one wants to achieve, and that plenty of other people are able to achieve, including basics like acquiring food, acquiring and maintaining shelter, etc.
Perhaps I can't feed myself because I have lost the use of my limbs, or fallen down a well, or run out of money. It would certainly be as well to be aware of such things, but what place has self-esteem in this?
Re this tangential conversation (at least it's tangential in my view), I was answering this question:
"why should I care whether I am obtuse or acute, blunt or sharp, coarse or fine?"
That's all I was doing. I didn't say anything whatsoever about self-esteem in my answer. I was only answering that question.
I gave an answer, a set of conditions, why one should care (when it's the case that one is seen as obtuse, blunt, etc.).
There are certainly other reasons that one can have problems with feeding oneself, etc. However, what I said was "one needs to figure out what the problem is," The problem could be any manner of facts. And one set of possibilities would be when other people feel that one is obtuse, etc. And the conditions I described are conditions where one would or should care that other people make those sorts of assessments. I said nothing like, "These conditions imply that there is that sort of problem."
Note, I said your response seemed obtuse, blunt, and coarse, (and surprisingly so) not that you are personally obtuse, blunt, or coarse.
As a concept, self-esteem is having its day. According to Google Ngram, the use of the term was flat and sparse between 1800 and 1940
Some people dislike the term--midwestern suburban political and religious conservatives, for instance. There was a very negative reaction when some state education departments added a self-esteem promoting component to the curriculum. I am not suggesting that you are part of that cohort. You have your own reasons for disliking the term/concept. (It is a guess, of course, that you dislike the term. Maybe you love it.)
Contemporary mental health thinking holds that it is a good thing if people think well of themselves, whether they are obtuse or acute, blunt or sharp, coarse or fine. (There are limits, however. The self-confidence, self-esteem, and auto-biographical praiseworthiness of a Donald Trump locates him in the category of puffed-up narcissist.)
Self esteem is part of a larger picture of what healthy personhood can be. Self-confidence, self-assurance, self-respect, dignity, morale, self regard, self-satisfaction, and so on, are related terms. One word list has it that humility, modesty, and meekness are it's opposites, which is certainly debatable. Self-loathing, self-abnegation, and self-destruction are the well that one falls into when self-esteem runs out.
*** Here's an sample of how Google Ngram gets its information:
?Phrenology: Or The Doctrine of the Mental Phenomena, Johann Gaspar Spurzheim - 1833.
"Organ of Self-esteem. Self-esteem is one of the faculties generally attributed to external circumstances ; but its activity is so very great and universal, that I am astonished it has not been at all times considered as a special feeling."
If you go to the site you can be linked to the books from which texts are taken and read pages...
It's time contemporary mental health thinking let go.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes, when one looks at the extreme, one can see clearly that self-esteem is a debilitating distortion of self-awareness - a hallucinatory defence against bullying. Bullying is endemic in society to such an extent that the defence becomes normal and psychologically necessary, at least to the poor fucked up shrinks of the world.
Here is my thesis again. One only needs to big oneself up if one has been belittled. Self esteem has no other function, and I challenge anyone again to provide another credible function than as a defence.
Well that's interesting. I thought that was an injunction rather than a method. So is your claim that one cannot love another without first thinking one is lovely? I cannot see why that must be so, can you explain?
You are incredibly preachy btw. Bullied were you?
So now you're saying that accepting that we're all sinners is self-esteem or what the fuck? And yes I was both bullied and a bully, and I still am. So what does that reveal about anything?
The confidence you demonstrate shows decent self estimation. Possibly it's a defense. The oyster is defending itself when it makes the pearl.
Yes, but not particularly self-esteem.
The esteem in which I hold myself is not actually the topic, nor even whether it is justified or unjustified. But your suggestion that self esteem is a defence is exactly my own contention. Sigh.
Not going to bother explaining why...not to your know it all self anyway. :p
Is it a result of having a low sense of self-esteem?
How does one make it shut up and be left alone?
Step 1. Acknowledge that your inner critic is very negative and won't shut up. Expect to hear from it regularly. One of the objectives of meditation practice is to learn to let mental chatter float by without responding to it. I'm not sure you can just make it shut up. Hence, #2...
Step 2. Hire another internal critic to say positive things about you. That's right, imagine it. Imagine your positive minded critic saying good things about you. Hear it say those positive things. You say those positive expressions to yourself out loud.
Not being perfect isn't a disaster. Nobody is perfect.
Is the negative yammering in your head a result of low self-esteem? Oh, maybe. It could be. Unenlightened doesn't think so, but then he doesn't get it. It could also be a habit of mind to think poorly of your self. (so, stop that. Start thinking better of yourself.) It could be an insufficiency of pleasurable neurotransmitters in your brain's synapses. Not enough serotonin, maybe.
If it is a deficiency of serotonin, maybe an antidepressant that boosts serotonin levels would help. The reason for seeing a psychiatrist, and not a GP, about depression is that psychiatrists often have more experience with prescribing, and get better results. But... not always.
Are you involved in positive social activity with other people? Sometimes good company can be an effective anti-depressant, in the short run, at least.
Good company helps, bad company makes things worse. It's the same with food: Good food is better than bad food.
While reading into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, I learned that some psychologists buy into this "inherently defective" line of thought presented by the patient. Freud said something about the matter that the depressed individual views the world correctly or in the most realistic fashion.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is something that I return to when I associate my emotions with distorted beliefs. What is confusing to me is the entire point of the book, which the author explains to be centered around building a strong self-esteem. Isn't this strange?
Maybe if you can't catch a rabbit, then try catching something slower.
I am well aware that some people have these thoughts, that that they are bitter cranks or unenlightened or whatever. I have exactly been saying that it is these kinds of thoughts that lead one to want to raise one's self-esteem by some method. But my advice is different.
My suggestion is not to be judgemental about how judgemental you are. Negative thoughts are the best kind of thoughts, or at least as good as positive ones. If one can notice that one is being critical of the critic, one might even find it amusing. At any rate the effort to negate one's negativity can be seen to merely support the internal conflict and division. The voice yammers so much because you are trying to argue with it, negate it and not listen to it.
So if your inner voice tells you you are a crap philosopher who has no insight and just likes to preach, accept the complaints, and explain that you will do your best to become a better philosopher as you go along, but that not philosophising at all will not improve matters. If you listen to your voices, they become closer to you and less antagonistic. Eventually they may become part of you. ;)
That's a good question that I can't really answer, because I basically have the opposite problem. I've never had much of an internal critic. I typically really like the stuff I create, for example. And that extends to me not being much of a negative critic of stuff that other people create, too. I'm like the anti-Sturgeon--I think that 90% of everything is pretty good. That also extends to other things. For example, I'm attracted to about 90% of the women in the world, I'd like to live in about 90% of the places I visit, etc. There are some things where I like a smaller percentage of stuff available--for example, I'm a bit pickier with food, but I just see some things as not for me. I don't see it as if there's something more generally wrong with whatever it is.
Which brings to mind this quote from Dogen: “To study enlightenment is to study the self; to study the self is to forget the self; to forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the body and mind of others drop away. No trace of realization remains and this no trace continues endlessly.”
This may seem all well and good for Zen masters or practicing Buddhists or maybe magickal wizards, but what practical use is that in real life? (one could ask). To continue the thoughts i wrote in the first response in this thread, any steps to re-balance the ego (that which is one's sense of self) will more than likely yield positive results. It is not an all-or-nothing affair where one is trying to lose, or worse yet "kill", the ego. Some gentle and gradual reducing may help, though. The ego can become inadvertently enlarged, much like our bodies or the pile of our possessions can. There seems to be something in the human mind that likes to grab and hold onto things to fill the void. This can be natural and healthy, like eating when hungry. But it quickly can go to extremes, that much seems self-evident. At least it relates to my experiences both past and present in attempting to find the balance points. When applied to the body, it can lead to a toxic obesity and ill health. With possessions, it may manifest as extreme hoarding.
"A ping pong ball on the ocean"...
But when it is the self itself trying to hyper-expand to fill the void and deal with a sense of emptiness, it is harder to deal with because it is not visible. Not visible, but existent nonetheless. A feeling of disconnection and isolation from other humans and the rest of the world is perhaps one of the most common feelings. (There have been several recent threads concerning this isolation and feeling of solipsism such as: http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/776/the-isolation-of-mind/p1 ). When one feels as separate, small and powerless as a ping pong ball floating on the ocean, it seems like we are battered about at the mercy of the wind and waves. The first inclination might be to do something like the expression "go big or go home". But if one completely identifies with the Isolation, and believes that they are totally separate from everything else, "going big" might just make the situation worse. Instead of being a "ping pong ball self" floating on the ocean, there is a "beach ball self" floating on the waves.
Well, the "beach ball self" is definitely bigger. Sometimes in certain circumstances bigger is better, but sometimes not. The reflexive habit to expand our identity while keeping the walls of that identity air-tight can lead to a ballooning effect. The more air pumped into a balloon, the larger it becomes. But the air pressure is also increased which may lead to a sense of tightening constriction. The larger an inflated balloon becomes, the thinner its skin is. This makes it more vulnerable to pinpricks and the like. A beach ball on the ocean may have lots of room to bob about. But imagine a room filled with many beach balls, all inflated to the max. They are "feeling" (so to speak) internally pressured from the air, and externally pressured from all the other beach balls pushing against their thin vulnerable surfaces. One can then imagine the sorts of dynamics and conflicts arising from this hypothetical situation. This describes in a very general way many of the interactions around us, imho.
Those who say that this situation is the way things are and is unavoidable, and it boils down to "survival of the fittest" are probably concerned with becoming the largest beach ball on the block, while trying to deflate their competition.
And there are those who know this dynamic exists, but are looking for other ways of existing. Those that look long enough might find something.
Thanks for your consideration of these ideas. Hope they are as helpful to read as they were for me to write. Any feedback is welcome.
Actually, the air pressure is decreased as the balloon is inflated,because it is maintained by the skin, which becomes thinner. It's counter intuitive; more air ought to mean more pressure, but it doesn't because there even more expansion. I'm sure this must have revelatory significance for your metaphor, but I can't work it out so I have to confess to nit picking.
Not sure, that may indeed be the case. Lol! :D Was referring to something like a tire, how the pressure is measured in PSI. And how a more inflated tire will have a higher pounds per square inch than an underinflated tire, which seems like there's more pressure. Anyhow, you get the general point...
What good this internal nagging voice do a person any good?
"I'm bad at this."
"I don't understand it, therefore XYZ."
"I'm inherently flawed."
You get the idea?
I'm certainly aware of things that other people think are crappy/ugly/etc. I just don't agree that they're crappy/ugly (for a lot of things, at least). I have a different opinion of them. My tastes are different.
I should maybe add, in case it's not obvious, that I don't believe that there are correct or incorrect judgments about whether something is good/bad/beautiful/ugly/etc.
But, are you willing to admit the possibility of this being at least partly a result of your being sheltered from other, crappier, uglier, conditions of life? Perhaps being a victim of torture, rape or other forms of extreme suffering would kick start new considerations on moral realism?
Mm, maybe those were too extreme examples, but they get the point across. Much less intense instances of suffering are usually enough to change people's minds.
That sounds to me like you're saying that if one were to feel something strongly enough, one would necessarily come to the conclusion that it can't just be a way that one is feeling about whatever it is. (And then you're making the assumption that I don't feel that strongly about anything.)
I'm not sure why we'd think that one would necessarily come to a conclusion that just because one feels really strongly about something, it's not just a way that one feels.
!o! Grandma only ever had your best interests at heart! :D
It seems like one of those egotistical concepts that can never be fully actualized.
For the matter, as mentioned earlier, self-esteem can never be attained much like happiness; but, is a continual never ending process.
But, then one wonders how did Buddha attain nirvana? Maybe if you believe hard enough it can be true?
See, the first stage of nirvana is attained when you give up on your personal hopes and dreams, but this is incomplete, because even though your spirit is dead, the body still remains, so nirvana isn't completed until death.
I think, subconsciously I have been living a nihilistic life. Nihilism quite literally leaves no room for developing self-esteem, in anything, including the self, as nothing is of value. (Quite a tongue twister there)
Another version is to only treat the self as a source of value; however, the self has no inherent value devoid of things that are not part of itself thus leading to solipsism.
I doubt that you'll logic your way out though. Being engaged with the world with an undisturbed focus and enthusiasm is tops. When the brain goes into rest mode, as it were, and shifts to emotional and social reasoning has the highest ups and downs -- but just idlness. No enthralling projects, no peeps to figure out, be infatuated with, discern the intentions, needs, and desires of... that's probably the most drab. Not really as bad as the social, or physical pain you risk with the other two (same part of the brain lights up regardless of whether it's physical or social pain) -- but it's just a dull emptiness. Even when inspired, you feel like the energy goes to waste, or there is no where to direct it because of the lack of physical and social passion.
From what I know of it, nirvana has little to do with believing anything. It's about understanding that the cause of all of life's unhappiness lies in the desires and attachments we have, and then letting go of these desires to attain eternal happiness.
I propose that self-esteem satisfies a sort of drive just as food satisfies hunger. To look in the mirror, whether physical or in some medium, such as the self manifest in writing, and to like what one experiences is a particularly human pleasure. I suggest measuring this drive in terms of trade-offs. Will you deny yourself the pleasure of ice cream for the quite different pleasure of seeing a slender person in the mirror? Will you study a subject you don't like, when you could be binge-watching a great new show, for the pleasure of seeings those A's drop on your university website? Will you drag yourself out of bed at 5AM on a Sunday to do charity work for the pleasure of seeing yourself as someone who makes a difference? (Maybe there is empathy for the suffering involved, too, but surely we can acknowledge narcissistic pleasure in some cases --else why give alms in secret?) Finally even the condemnation of narcissism allows for a narcissistic reading. We enjoy the thought of ourselves as lovably humble or emotionally mature.
I think the torture you mention is precisely our perception of the gap between who we are and who we (at that moment) would like to see ourselves as. It's plausible that braggarts and pathological liars are accidentally revealing the perfect opposite of that they which to present perhaps to themselves as much as others. But it's also plausible that those who are rarely satisfied with themselves will evolve a way a thinking that declares self-esteem to be a vice or an illusions. "No one is really happy with themselves. It's all just bluff, pretense, sickliness." In my view, we can get better at scratching the itch for self-esteem just as we get better at satisfying other urges. We can get better at being happy in general, as all of these skills (practical as well as self-reflective considerations of value) coalesce. Spiritual crisis is (in my view) transitional. We not only adjust ourselves to the person we want to see in the mirror: We also adjust the person we want to see in the mirror to the person we are good at being.
Ha!
Surely self-esteem is not as important a drive as hunger? Would you say then that self-esteem or some form of narcissism must always exist in every human being?
Quoting hunterkf5732
One could argue that narcissism, which I do understand as basic human "drive," is sometimes more powerful than hunger. Humans will risk their lives over honor, reputation, status concerns. Weight-lifters kill themselves with steroids. Anorexics are of course the perfect example of narcissism overpowering hunger.
Narcissism is often painted as a sort of vice or failing, but what of the narcissist pleasure that one might take in not being one of those silly narcissists? Of course there a genuine losing of one's self in the object (the not self) at times, and this does seem connected to virtue. (The personalities that tend to fascinate me tend to doggedly impersonal, which is to say focused on what the most developed humans have in common.)
In reality it is affected by the persons desire and ego, and a persons inability to accept.
An important fact about self-esteem is that it has become synonymous with the possession of material goods and status (again material goods, like a home, a nice car, and a high paying job). Thus, a person who can reject the desire for pumping up one's self-esteem with material possession and good, is in actuality the person with the highest self-esteem (think Stoics or Buddhists).
We play our part in the drama of life. We feel affection for our family and friends. Affection impels us to put our self in the place of the other, feel his/her pain. Mothers are a very vivid example of this. This affection is willingness to forego your own gratification to make others happy. If your sacrifices have been proportional to the affection you feel towards each of your loved ones (family, friends, community, country..), you like yourself; you feel honor in your heart. This is how we build character. Our character decides our worthiness for our happiness. The one who cheats his heart, gets cheated by his heart out of happiness.
The question arises in what esteem should one hold self-esteem?
If self-esteem is esteemed, then having high self-esteem will lead to higher self-esteem, and having low self-esteem will lead to lower self-esteem. It is an inherently unstable condition, as if the air conditioning has been wired up backwards, so that when it is hot the heating kicks in, and when it is cold, the cooler operates.
In the old days, humility was a virtue, and pride a sin - so it was the opposite situation where one could be proud of one's humility, but humiliated by one's pride. This is a stable self regulating system, and much to be preferred.
Depends on which old days, of course. There were the Aristotelian old days when you really ought to be proud of the right things for the right reasons in the right way - one of which was almost certainly to love yourself, which Ari also regarded as part of Ethics Central.
A bit of point missing going on here. One of the right things of which one should be proud was not 'being proud'. One of the things one should not love oneself for is loving oneself.
Most of us have some virtues and some vices, and it is 'reasonable', to be proud of one's virtues and ashamed of one's vices. But if pride is a virtue and shame is a vice, as promoted by certain cod psychological quarters, the feedback destabilises the personality, and leads towards manic depression, the overachiever's disease.
Ahh, but that's all biological. Just take some lithium!
No, but one should be happy about being happy.
I think you're missing my intended tone, I should have made myself clearer. I do perfectly clearly understand your point.