CDawg
05-05-2008, 11:36 AM
The Alternative to Self-Esteem
(an excerpt from THE TROUBLE WITH SELF-ESTEEM
by Michael R. Edelstein)
The desirability of raising self-esteem seems persuasive because people with serious emotional problems often have low self-esteem: they hold a low opinion of themselves and dwell on their shortcomings. So it's an appealing idea to improve individuals' rating of themselves, and this seems to require getting them to hold a higher opinion of themselves--building their self-esteem.
The way of thinking I have just outlined may seem at first to be so obvious as to be unquestionable. But in fact, it commits an error. It assumes that the only alternative to giving yourself a low rating is to give yourself a high rating. This way of thinking considers only two alternatives: either you rate yourself as a bad person (a failure, a louse, a nothing) or your rate yourself as a good person (a success, a paragon, a fine human being). That ignores another option: don't rate yourself at all.
It's the essence of the gospel of self-esteem that you should rate yourself highly. Almost unnoticed is the assumption that you can't avoid rating yourself, and equally inconspicuous is the practical corollary of raising your self-esteem: if you set out to "build your self-esteem," you become preoccupied with your rating of yourself.
Not rating yourself, refraining from self-rating, means that you can evaluate what you do without drawing conclusions about yourself as a total person. For instance, if you are frequently late for appointments, you may think, "Being late for appointments has consequences I don't like. Is there some way I can stop being late?" You don't have to think, "Because I am often late for appointments I am a loser." You don't need to draw any conclusions about your total self. That may sound unobjectionable. But suppose that you conquer your habit of being late. Now, you're always punctual. What harm can it do to pat yourself on the back? Why not think, "I'm an admirably efficacious person, because I'm always on time"?
It can indeed do harm! You are drawing comfort and sustenance from your judgment that you are a fine person, and you are requiring yourself to perform well to support that judgment. This leads to anxiety. Moreover, the next time you don't perform so well, you will then be liable to feel, not just regret and sadness that you didn't do what would have been best, but demoralization and discouragement, because you now have evidence that you are not such a good person.
We can acknowledge that low self-esteem may be a problem, without recommending high self- esteem. If someone has low self-esteem, we need not try to replace that person's low self-esteem with high self-esteem. We can instead encourage them to stop globally evaluating themselves. Instead of low self-esteem or high self-esteem, they can have no self-esteem. Or better, since "no self-esteem" sounds like low self-esteem, they can do without self-rating.
If we do not rate our total selves as good or bad, what attitude is it best for us to take towards ourselves? Instead of esteeming ourselves, we can unconditionally accept ourselves as we are. No matter how well we perform, no matter how brilliant our accomplishments, we are always imperfect, fallible human beings. Conversely, no matter how badly we screw up, we always do some things right
(as demonstrated by the fact that we have survived this far).
Unconditional self-acceptance doesn't mean that we don't want to change anything. It means that we unconditionally accept the reality of who we are and what we are like. This does not involve any overall evaluation of our worth or quality as human beings. It means that nothing that we do will make us believe that we are, in toto, terrific or terrible, heroic or horrible, godlike or goblinlike.
Having unconditionally accepted ourselves, we can then concentrate on what we do and how we can improve it--not because this will make us feel wonderful about ourselves--give us high self-esteem-- but because we will then more effectively accomplish the goals we have set ourselves, and feel wonderful about that.
Reposted with permission
C
(an excerpt from THE TROUBLE WITH SELF-ESTEEM
by Michael R. Edelstein)
The desirability of raising self-esteem seems persuasive because people with serious emotional problems often have low self-esteem: they hold a low opinion of themselves and dwell on their shortcomings. So it's an appealing idea to improve individuals' rating of themselves, and this seems to require getting them to hold a higher opinion of themselves--building their self-esteem.
The way of thinking I have just outlined may seem at first to be so obvious as to be unquestionable. But in fact, it commits an error. It assumes that the only alternative to giving yourself a low rating is to give yourself a high rating. This way of thinking considers only two alternatives: either you rate yourself as a bad person (a failure, a louse, a nothing) or your rate yourself as a good person (a success, a paragon, a fine human being). That ignores another option: don't rate yourself at all.
It's the essence of the gospel of self-esteem that you should rate yourself highly. Almost unnoticed is the assumption that you can't avoid rating yourself, and equally inconspicuous is the practical corollary of raising your self-esteem: if you set out to "build your self-esteem," you become preoccupied with your rating of yourself.
Not rating yourself, refraining from self-rating, means that you can evaluate what you do without drawing conclusions about yourself as a total person. For instance, if you are frequently late for appointments, you may think, "Being late for appointments has consequences I don't like. Is there some way I can stop being late?" You don't have to think, "Because I am often late for appointments I am a loser." You don't need to draw any conclusions about your total self. That may sound unobjectionable. But suppose that you conquer your habit of being late. Now, you're always punctual. What harm can it do to pat yourself on the back? Why not think, "I'm an admirably efficacious person, because I'm always on time"?
It can indeed do harm! You are drawing comfort and sustenance from your judgment that you are a fine person, and you are requiring yourself to perform well to support that judgment. This leads to anxiety. Moreover, the next time you don't perform so well, you will then be liable to feel, not just regret and sadness that you didn't do what would have been best, but demoralization and discouragement, because you now have evidence that you are not such a good person.
We can acknowledge that low self-esteem may be a problem, without recommending high self- esteem. If someone has low self-esteem, we need not try to replace that person's low self-esteem with high self-esteem. We can instead encourage them to stop globally evaluating themselves. Instead of low self-esteem or high self-esteem, they can have no self-esteem. Or better, since "no self-esteem" sounds like low self-esteem, they can do without self-rating.
If we do not rate our total selves as good or bad, what attitude is it best for us to take towards ourselves? Instead of esteeming ourselves, we can unconditionally accept ourselves as we are. No matter how well we perform, no matter how brilliant our accomplishments, we are always imperfect, fallible human beings. Conversely, no matter how badly we screw up, we always do some things right
(as demonstrated by the fact that we have survived this far).
Unconditional self-acceptance doesn't mean that we don't want to change anything. It means that we unconditionally accept the reality of who we are and what we are like. This does not involve any overall evaluation of our worth or quality as human beings. It means that nothing that we do will make us believe that we are, in toto, terrific or terrible, heroic or horrible, godlike or goblinlike.
Having unconditionally accepted ourselves, we can then concentrate on what we do and how we can improve it--not because this will make us feel wonderful about ourselves--give us high self-esteem-- but because we will then more effectively accomplish the goals we have set ourselves, and feel wonderful about that.
Reposted with permission
C