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I would like to write about an often misunderstood phrase “self esteem ” A word often misused by mental health care professionals. A catch  phrase used to explain way too many problems. Low self esteem manages to be the source of all evil. Evil ?

Low self esteem is often connected to a lack of confidence but as we will see the opposite is actually true. What is low self esteem? It is basically when you do not like yourself. There may be just one thing you do not like about yourself or many things or everything. The later is more rare.The one thing that psychology does show is that people who do not like themselves have a hard time liking others. They tend to be angry  at the world and would like nothing more than spend the rest of their life trying to get even with it. Never the less they do make friends especially those they respect. Yes those who make them look good. Most of their friends end up being others with a low self esteem as they can relate to each other. People with low self esteem generally make themselves feel better by comparing themselves with others. Most often they are critical of others. These people tend to have all kinds of prejudices. The more people they can put down the more they think they are building themselves up. As I said before people with low self esteem can act quite confident. And confidence to an extreme leads to arrogance. They try so hard to convince others how great they are that they are rather convincing even to themselves. The question is where does low self esteem come from ? Most likely from dysfunctional parents. But to be fair not every one that comes from a bad childhood is necessarily going to have low self esteem . So i would suspect as many do that it is either or both nurture ( or the lack of ) and nature ( inherited traits ) there are some who have great childhood experiences who still end up with low self esteem. I am not going to pretend to be an expert on the cause. With a never ending struggle with self image these people have a skewed value system. They are always trying to reevaluate themselves which makes them quite competitive with others. Often times success comes at the expense of others. I think you might be getting the point I am trying to make here in this series on the uniqueness of the human mind.The people who can best celebrate their uniqueness are people who in truth have a high self esteem. They know how to love and to care because they love themselves. They accept themselves for who they are and have room to accept others for whom they are. A person with low self esteem is more driven to succeed in a different way. Success is defined differently by some one with low self esteem as apposed to one with high self esteem. The later defines success not only on a monetary level but ones personal success.This individual is driven more by personal values. They strive towards a good work ethic and have pride in what they can do well . They work well with others and feel a sense of accomplishment at contributing something to society. People with low self esteem are takers and consider success as getting as much as possible with the lest amount of effort and have no consideration for who gets hurt in the process. They are never satisfied , for them success  becomes an addiction.They work hard to achieve and once achieved there is little satisfaction leading to the next conquest.


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