How Do You Define Self Esteem?

Summary

  • Self esteem is how you feel about your own worth as a person.
    • For most people, self-esteem is how you feel about how other people feel about your own worth as a person. - This pretty much means… you don’t have control over how you feel about your own worth! That’s very scary! Why do we put our self esteem in other people’s hands? We have to take back that control.
    • Example: Let’s say my self-esteem is based a lot on how my shoes looked, which is pretty dangerous. I know it it’s a problem, but that’s what everyone me cares about and people criticizes me if I don’t have good shoes. Here you can see even though I don’t want it to be, but if someone criticizes my shoes, my self-esteem would drop. Also, the TV shows, magazines, buzzfeeds keep telling me that my shoes is the most important thing, which makes me believe I need it for my self-esteem.
    • Example 2: My esteem is dependent on how my social group sees me to be. If somehow the people in the group doesn’t accept me or include me in the small things like hangouts or events, my self-worth or self-esteem takes a hit. I feel like I MUST be included at all times or I feel like I’ll miss out on what they’re doing and they will just leave me out along with all the self-esteem I have.
  • Self esteem is only built through understanding what gives you value as a person.
    • You have to know where your self worth comes from. What gives you value as a person? If you don’t have this question figured out, your self esteem will change a lot. - One day you will feel absolutely amazing about yourself, then the next day you might feel like the ugliest and most worthless person in the world. This can happen just by a small comment someone made about you. I don’t know about you, but I’m not getting a ticket to that ride.
    • I know that not everyone believes in the same religion or philosophy, but I hope that we can at all least agree on the fact that people are valuable just as people. The value of you as a person doesn’t change. It’s the same value for everyone. That’s why taking a life is horrible crime, because a valuable life is lost. - This means life is valuable, and you are valuable no matter who you are. You might think you are defective in some way because of your hair, teeth, height, weight, but no you’re not. Your value as a human being doesn’t decrease because of anything.