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Self-Esteem - The Golden Key
Luis Alberto Riveros
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[The courage to remember you have
the key within you.]
Does anyone know what Self-Esteem is? Ask five people. You’ll
get five different answers. The feeling behind the meaning of self-esteem
is a vague but yet mostly used definition: “To like yourself”.
Right? A little search of one on-line dictionary stated this: “1.
Pride in oneself; self-respect., 2. The quality of being worthy of
esteem or respect.”
According to the dictionary then respect is synonymous with esteem,
then if I respect something that means that I have due esteem for
it. Interesting! Now we are making progress! But…what about
“SELF?” The meaning behind the word “self”
will enlighten us in our quest for “self-esteem.” Searching
for the meaning of this little word brought the following results:
“1.Oneself. 2. One’s own self or One’s normal or
healthy condition or state.” Sounds like a semantically impaired
definition to me.
Now, we have a problem. Who is that SELF? … Is it my body? Is
it all about liking, respecting or esteeming my body? Ok, if this
is all. I decide to “like my body”. Great! I have self-esteem
now… however, somehow I cannot convince myself of this. You
see, I think that Jack is better looking than I. As a matter of fact,
everyone thinks that. I still “like me” but Jack is more
handsome…Is there anything that I can do to change this face
of mine, so it looks better than Jack’s? Yes, I can spend several
thousand dollars to look like what I think, or what the doctor thinks
or what the computer thinks or what my best friends thinks is good,
but what about 30 years from now? Maybe self-esteem doesn’t
live that long after all. Is that so? The question is: Who am I? Who
is that which I have to have respect for, esteem for?
Thinking along these lines, I found a couple of interesting “quotes”
about self-respect and self-esteem. (I can use these words: respect
and esteem, interchangeably according to our dictionary) “Respecting
yourself means listening to your body and emotions continuously. Then
acting beyond a linear logic to achieve ones goals.” And “Self-respect
is the fruit of discipline, the sense of dignity grows with the ability
to say no to oneself”
Then, I thought, - listening to your body…ok. Who is listening?
Then, “…the ability to say no to oneself …Who is
that self? ME, but WHO; My body, my brains, my hands, my feelings,
my attitude, my emotions, my thoughts??… WHO?
All of a sudden I realized there are plenty of articles out there
about “Self Esteem”, but there is no consensus as to what
we are referring to. In short, who is “oneself?” How little
do we know about who we are? The answer is within us. Do we have the
time to search, the desire to search?
Our attitudes create feelings. Feelings create thoughts and a thought
creates our beliefs and actions. If I have an attitude of insult or
ego (arrogance) towards others, I lack self-respect. If there is a
slight desire for respect even in thoughts, I will not receive respect.
The stage of humility, of being humble automatically enables you to
gain respect. Self- Esteem is in this realm, it is an attitude borne
out of an understanding; the understanding of WHO we really are.
Self-respect or self-esteem finishes arrogance.
I use to drive a red mustang. It was my pride. You see, it was the
nicest car among my buddies. One day, Charlie won the lotto (you’d
better believe it!) the next day he bought a beautiful Lamborghini.
At that moment my self-esteem went down the drain….Sounds familiar?
Am I the red mustang? Nope. Why do I feel so lousy then? Because I
compared the two vehicles and evaluated which one is “better”.
I extended the range of my “own self” to my property,
namely the car.
To esteem anything, I found on the web, is “to evaluate it positively
and hold it in high regard”. The problem comes when I compare
not knowing who I am, not knowing that this body of mine is just a
red mustang. Someone else will have the body of a beat up beetle and
some else will have that body of a Lamborghini… however, I am
something different. I cannot talk about self esteem until I know
who I am. DO YOU DARE TO FIND OUT?
That is self-esteem. To have the courage to find out for ourselves
who we are. To avoid being passive and just absorbing what the “experts”
tell us. Self-Esteem is to be courageous. After all, self-esteem is
about you.
Who is the self? This question has not been answered yet. You are
the one with the answer; you just need to recall it, to remember it.
Plato said, “We don’t learn, we remember”. Know
thyself. Have self esteem. The answer is within you. The ingredients
are courage to take the first step, perseverance to continue on in
this path unaware of the distance and determination not to be distracted
by the side scenes until we reach the goal. Look inside. Meditation
could help to find the world inside you, that world of peace and silence
where the true “self” resides. After all, self-esteem
is courage to knock on your own internal door and find out who answers.
Luis Alberto Riveros; M.Ed, MS, MCSE is a peaceful soul. Raja Yoga
student/ teacher of the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual Organization
in Tampa. www.bktampa.org
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