chrisg

Over this month, there have been so many flipping thoughts as I try to navigate this whole 'self-esteem' thing. It crosses over so heavily with 'you are what you repeatedly do'.

In 2018, I got the words, “you are more than your thoughts” tattooed on to my left arm. This was in an effort to remind myself that my mind is just one interpretation of reality and that it does not always have my best interests in mind.

In 2022, I got the words, “do the hard thing” tattooed on to my right wrist. This was because I am of the belief that, when faced with a choice, the one your brain least wants to do is often the most rewarding. Don't want to go to the gym after work? Probably will help. Want to order a pizza because you only have salad in the fridge? Unlikely to be optimal.

Those words are seen by me everyday and I am fully aware I do not always live by them. Instead of being a reminder, they may have served as more of a reminder that I am not living up to the person I believe I am or the person I claim to be.

Self-esteem is a confusing concept for me and I will admit that I do not fully understand it. I do not think that I hate myself but I do not think I have any default value and usually feel that people will want me in their lives as long as I add value / perform acts of service. “Other people's happiness before my own” has been a rule for as long as I remember. Sometimes, it has harmed me or caused me to be taken advantage of but, mostly, I have been OK with this; I enjoy helping people and I very much enjoy being part of helping someone achieve something.

That said, there is a close link with self-fulfilling prophecies here (i.e. trying to avoid an outcome is likely to create that outcome). If I claim to be an honourable person but I dislike myself and expect negative outcomes, then I am more likely to justify doing something negative. For example, If I expect someone to leave me and I think I am a piece of shit, then of course a piece of shit would be unfaithful. However, even if I expected someone to leave me, but I think I am an honourable person, it would be harder to justify this action.

This is the first argument towards the benefits of self-esteem that has made sense to me: combining “you are more than your thoughts” with “you are what you repeatedly do” so that your sense of self is aligned with the person you claim to be. This deviation from self is a source of anxiety for me (and others, I assume) that would be massively reduced when you live more authentically.

You may have guess that this is mostly a brain dump as I have zero answers to this, but so many questions.

For example, if I do not have self-esteem then I should not expect things from others and, if I get things, then I would not deserve them. This has been a way of living for me but it also hurts those close to me as I am uncomfortable receiving gifts, closed off to relying on others and rejecting compliments. Which, in some ways, is selfish and makes it seem like it is OK for me to do those things for others but not OK to receive them in return.

If I do have self-respect, where does one draw the line? I did awful things and hurt a person that I love and they asked to be left alone. Regardless of what one thinks of oneself, this is totally reasonable. These things that I did were (in part) because of my difficulty with handling uncertainty and lack of self-respect. I expect to struggle with respecting that request and also see it as an opportunity for growth.

However, when I feel like that uncertainty is causing me to disconnect and consider moving on (note: not performing negative behaviours or looking for instant gratification), should that request still be respected? If I have self-respect, it feels like that answer would be no but I have no idea and I do not want my actions/learnings to be seen as more important, disrespectful or even manipulative. What am I coming back to? What can I expect? When will that silence be broken? And how? I think I have done the work to be ok with the answers, regardless of what they are (though I have a strong preference, of course), but it seems the work for dealing with not knowing indefinitely is ongoing.