QUESTION POSTED BY AMARINDER ARORA
We all face problems of self-esteem at certain times in our life. Isn’t it? We feel inferior to a lot of people around us and it bothers us. We curse ourselves for no reason and in the process, some people even end up harming themselves.
The ultimate goal of the self is to protect an image of its self-integrity, morality and adequacy. Right? But at what cause?
We start with being honest to ourselves and align to our own values, morals and ethics. More often than not, in the name of these morals and values which we set for our good, bind us and restrict us. So, we end up crying because the instilled values won’t let us be rude to anyone and hurt them. Holy mother of god.
Is it morally correct? Let’s talk, we must.
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It’s my opinion that self-esteem issues can be caused by a self-perception which is too limited. If we include every one and everything else in our self-image, then we aren’t as concerned with minutiae.
I think too often self esteem is based on the collective views of others as we think they are more objective. But objectivity is not only the province of the outside world. If we embrace our strengths and recognise but not be overcome by our weaknesses we can have self knowledge and that is the beginning of self esteem.
I agree helen, low self-esteem often comes from placing how others view us as being more important than how we view ourselves. If there is one thing we have the means to take control of for ourselves, it is how we view ourselves. But it is hard and does take time because we adopt the view of us that others have, such as family members, friends, as we grow up, and we need to develop our own sense of self independently from this gradually over time. As we do this self esteem gets better. Though somewhere along the way it is of great value to have positive people around you also. They can help to reinforce you in positive views of yourself.
And that is exactly what everyone should aim at and follow in their life. (Y)
When you identify with what happens to you on a level of achieving or failing the self esteem gets stronger as we over think it in the mind… Example would be little johnny wasn’t able to hit the baseball and he has tried repeatedly. Everyone kept telling him to just hit the ball, how he becomes treated by others to including his own self infliction will now be carried on inside the mind as the repeat behavior that is never truly who johnny is just his thought process..(hence the birth of self esteem) the more johnny didn’t hit the ball the more this impacted him. As he grew up and heard these same things that he wasn’t able to do he would feel his sense of being threatened! This is what creates a egoic mode of thinking you are above, below, good, bad, capable or incapable. You see the error is not in morality or anything else. It is the content the mind has been given. It is the ability to strike you down when no one else will. You learn this by making time into an enemy the past is your best friend and the future is your lover.. You never see the present moment other than a place to relive all past or future things never taking yourself fully into the moment to achieve anything. All related ups and downs that one can experience are these particular things that we hold in the catalog of the mind. You always have a choice to change this you either elect to remove this as you will never hit the ball, and you will see yourself missing it over and over. It will bring about emotional based activity on the thought process you keep, that keeps you from ever seeing it more than a thought process. You actually can change this process by realizing you are not the mind, it is not you as content, and you should no longer seek yourself in the content for you are something more. You are the uncontested magnificent being inside who takes the abuse of the mind and it’s incessant rantings.. No longer seek yourself in the mind to become free of it.. You are never not amazing.. your mind keeps you where it keeps you.. don’t seek your sense of self in the mind! There is no other criminal of self esteem other than the limitations you give value to inside the content of the mind.
This pretty much answers my question.
Thank You, Clark.
A shift in consciousness is a sharing gift it requires no thank you just an extended connection in friendship.
Morality, ethics and values are yet another set of unnatural laws, next to the legal, military etc. which we impose on ourselves in order to keep the society at bay. None of them address the real problems people are facing nor do they come up with any solutions.
Instead of tormenting our minds over and over again with the questions “Is this or that moral?” or “Is it acceptable to be rude to someone if they have been rude to us?” we REALLY need to get a grip and ask ourselves the real questions. HOW do we change the society so that people do not just stop being rude but do not have the NEED to be rude anymore? Instead of agonizing over death penalty, we should be making use of our brains and reasoning, in order to understand WHY crime happens and how to make people not WANT or NEED to commit them.
Find solutions rather that patch up what we have with more and more rules and laws.
Demosthenes, do you really think that people do not understand why crime happens and WHY is there a need to change the ‘mindset’ of the society? WE are the society and you can’t deny to accept the fact that WE are at fault and each one of us knows that we need to change. What we do is just crib about it. Period.
Yes, we need to find solutions which are practical. We need make sure that the laws which are in order are amended (the need be) AND implemented.
No, people do not understand why crime happens. If they did they would make it go away a long time ago! (Well there were in fact a few who did, but they ended up using the wrong method to achieve their goals. As Mr Einsteins once said: “We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.”) Yet even if they do have a clue on what is going on, they refuse to admit it and keep on riding the joyful ride of vicious circles. If you ask a random person on the street “Why do you think this man stole all that money?” or “Why did she kill her husband?” the answer you will get will most probably be something like “He was a bad person, an evil person.” or “Oh, ‘e must’ve been nuts o’ somethin’!” And I must say they were pretty right, however, people are not born evil and wicked and bonkers. They may have been predisposed to become violent or a little nutty by their genes but it is the society, the environment they live in, that shapes their behaviour. Now, if you think of any crime that occurs in today’s world, it has a great chance to come down to a single cause – inequality. Inequality of many different sorts. Then the question holds: “How to overcome the inequalities of the 21st century’s society?”
I am not advocating communism nor socialism. They both had an “elected” elite as foundation and that is NOT what equality is about.
“So, we end up crying because the instilled values won’t let us be rude to anyone and hurt them.” This makes no sense to me as a conclusion of the whole thought process. So we shouldn’t find our truth only cos we need to hurt other people so as to feel superior?
Ruby, It depend on how you perceive the word ‘crying’ in my statement.
Plus, I think it’s very clear that the whole discussion is about the fact that we feel ‘inferior’ to someone at some point in our life. AND, don’t you think that everyone knows their own truth already?
Hurt people so as to feel superior? I do not get where this came from.
I’d request you to elaborate on your point and please read the whole question again.
depends*
I’m wondering how many meanings the word “crying” could have. I read the question about 3 times, I still come up to the same conclusion though. We are both entitled to our opinions, have a wonderful Sunday.
I always believe our motivation is what matters. If we have no evil intent and other people take what we say or our actions in the wrong way, it is on their shoulders to ask for clarification, if they don’t and get huffy it is their problem. I will not waste my time trying to please everyone and second guessing myself, that is wasted time.
The best way to approach a situation.
Self-esteem is a self valuation/evaluation more than not based on how we think others see us. To be fair to ourselves we could limit this evaluation to just how we are seeing ourselves as others will have their own interpretations of us based on their own value system. It’s the Ego which feels the need to “protect” the self, the self needs no such protection as the self is a Divine creation. The Ego stands in front as it feels this is its job to protect and control everything.
Our holding fast to our code of conduct can and often will limit us as to what we will and will not do in a given situation. Holding to our personal code of conduct is our honor. Once we surrender to the pressure of others to deviate from our code we have lost what no one can take from us, our honor. (That is an old concept but I remember it well as we lived by it once upon a time.) The only thing in life we have control of is how we act/react.
And ego succeeds in its pursuit of controlling everything (US), right?
Until we learn to spot the work of the Ego, then we can decide not to go that way.
Values are different from morals. Values reflect our innate personalities and what we want to get out of life. Morals are what we inherit from our social circles and pressures. I think part of growing up is shifting from one size fits all morality to discover our personal values. Living by these never harms the self.
If we could really enter into other’s heads and hear what they’re saying about themselves, we’d probably be happy to run back to our own heads!!
Word.
For the last twenty years the Western world has seen a huge upswing in people openly practicing and advocating aberrant behaviors. They then proclaim that no one else can say they disagree or disapprove because that is rude or bullying. This stance is not something that normal people need to concern themselves with. It’s like the thieves of the world passing a law permitting theft.
I think that one must stick to their own morals. By doing so, one preserves their identity and independence.
Good values instilled by our parents, teachers and those we respect in authority help us overcome things that we may regret doing on day. It gives us a sense of conscience. I agree, it will make us cry or scratch our heads when there are times we want fight back oppressive, rude, insensitive people. And we know there are a lot of those out there.