What is self-esteem?
How many hours a day do you spend on making yourself feel a more valuable person/? Most people spend their entire lives investing tons of energy in something that is merely a Sisyphean task
How many hours a day do you spend on making yourself feel a more valuable person? Most people spend their entire lives investing tons of energy in something that is merely a Sisyphean task: in building their self-esteem on external factors.
Shopping, language courses, certificates, the latest gadgets, cars, career ladder ... Can any of these show how much you are really worth?
I want to inspire you to ask yourself - what is self-esteem?
Knowledge doesn’t give you value
You can shut yourself away in your room for a year and read hundreds of books. Will you become someone better when you come out after a year? Will your value increase in any way? Every definition and every paradigm can be checked within seconds using the google search engine these days. You can gain knowledge in no time and you can lose it in no time - it doesn’t reflect your value as a human being.
Certificates don’t give you value
More and more certificates proving your knowledge only show that you have invested some amount of time and effort to learn something new and pass an exam. Does it make you any better than others? Does it make someone who has chosen a different education path and decided not to gain certificates a less worthwhile person? Of course, expanding your knowledge is important, however, enrolling for a course only to pursue a certificate has little to do with intellectual development.
Money doesn’t give you value
It is amazing how the mind believes in the illusions that money, which is just a piece of paper, can make a person feel more worthy than others. I'm fascinated by the fact that the size of the bank account magically fills people with self-confidence. These people have given the power over themselves to money. If you lost all your financial assets, would you be someone less valuable?
A new car doesn’t give you value
Does losing a car mean you're less of a person? How could a material object that has nothing to do with your inner self build your value?
Jewellery and gadgets don’t give you value
What you possess, does not determine how much you are worth. You can have all the diamonds in the world and the newest revolutionary MacBook Pro, but defining your self-worth according to the value of things is still merely an illusion.
A large number of friends doesn’t give you value
And even the quality of the relationships that you have with them. This is the result of your habits - and depending on how open you are, you can establish more or fewer of them. Is the fact that you have one great friend instead of ten makes you worse? Can you measure somebody’s value based on the length of the list of their personal contacts?
Promotion at work doesn’t don’t give you value
It only means that you will have other duties and responsibilities and perhaps that you will earn more “pieces of papers”. Some people, who believe in the magical power of social status, may think that you are “somebody” then, but don’t fall for this illusion - your value doesn’t change, not even a bit, when you get a different, more high-falutin job title.
Self-worth
Having these things, even all at once, will not make you any more worthwhile as a human being. If you still rely on the old value measuring stick, this may sound... terrifying. But do you want to hold on to the patterns that will lead you nowhere?
Let go of the value measurement system, according to which, you had to sacrifice all your life to gain more and more knowledge, money and connections, because without these external "boosters", you are a worthless person.
When you see an infant, the measuring stick for this small human being dissolves - you are not able to determine if this child is valuable or not. That’s because it is unconditionally valuable - it cannot be less or more than exactly this.
How come people got to believe, in the course of history, that their value depends on external factors? It’s probably been a process aiming at turning us into obedient citizens, who would keep their heads down. Yet, you don’t need to take part in this show. You can choose to dismiss the idea that something gives you worth, because otherwise you forget about the value you already have as a person.
Of course, at first it may seem difficult to stop basing your self-esteem on the external factors in your life. However, over time, not having found it in material things, certificates or number of friends on Facebook, you will begin to see the real value in your true self.
The most important step in discovering your self-worth is to understand that your value has always been kept intact there within yourself.
You are now, have always been and will ever after be a valuable person - unconditionally. You are a human being who came to live in this world and let this be a sufficient reason to appreciate your infinite value. Close your eyes and see how wonderful it feels to say to yourself:
"I am unconditionally valuable"
Welcome to the world where self-esteem is something natural and real. See also Self-appraisal.