February 1 Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.
Low self-esteem is often grounded in a sense of vulnerability. When we feel threatened and defenseless, we hang onto our security as hard as we can for fear of losing something. Security is the assurance that nothing will be lost.
Of course everybody needs a reliable port in a storm. It’s careless and foolish not to provide for hard times. But an overdependence on security can actually make hard times of good times. It can make us unwilling to think new thoughts, to dare new actions, or ever take a risk. In our fear of rocking the boat, we may never pull up anchor and leave the dock at all.
Wondering and questioning are dangerous activities for security-tethered people. Any new information could jeopardize the status quo. Yet challenging the status quo is what self-improvement is all about. Without asking new questions, we can’t get any new answers. Without venturing down new paths, we can’t make any new discoveries. How are we going to feel good about ourselves if we don’t do anything to feel good about?
Many wonderful “could be’s” are possible for all of us—but only if we’re willing to take a few chances.
If security is the assurance that I will lose nothing that I already have, it’s also the assurance that I will gain nothing new.
February 2 My God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me, I cannot know for certain where it will end…but I will not fear, for you are ever with me.
If self-esteem means confidence and confidence means being sure about what’s going to happen, then we’re all out of luck in the self-esteem department. None of us knows the answers to the biggest, most important question in life. If that fact makes us terribly insecure, we’re going to be in for a whole lot of fear, worry, and anxiety.
The truly confident person knows that life is much more of a process and a journey than a matter of answers and destinations. It is one thing not to know where the road leads—but quite another to be paralyzed because we don’t know. If the open road makes us too frightened and insecure, we will probably miss all the lovely scenery along the way. And we won’t learn the lessons of the journey.
Confidence arises from self, not circumstances. Just because the road is uncertain doesn’t mean that we are. If we have a Higher Power walking just ahead of us, we have all the security we need.
Confidence in God turns my insecurity into trust.
February 3 There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it.
What do people say of us behind our backs? While the question itself is unsettling, most of us have wondered about it. Maybe they say we are bossy or perfectionistic, stubborn or uncommunicative—those things wouldn’t be too bad. But we wouldn’t want to be thought of as vain. That would be embarrassing.
Because we have learned to preen in privacy and boast discreetly, we like to believe that our conceits are invisible. But the fact is that human nature is riddled through and through with inflated pride. Our difficulty is that we are too vain to admit and accept our own vanity.
If you don’t believe it, check it out. How many times do you mentally replay an embarrassing situation to come up with a clever comeback or rationalize a mistake? Do you overreact when someone gets a laugh at your expense? Does a small slight grind away at you for days or weeks? Do you let battles of will grow out of all sensible proportion? Most of us do all of those things to some degree or another. Some of us are even vain about our imagined lack of vanity! But there’s no way around it. We are all vain people. Our challenge is to accept this truth about ourselves so we can actively bring it under control.
No one is superhuman. My healthy self-regard is based on acceptance of human nature.
February 4 Each handicap is like a hurdler in a steeplechase. When you ride up to it, if you throw your heart over, the horse will go along, too.
Too old to get hired? Too short to make the team? Too shy to ask for a date? These are just conditions, not insurmountable obstacles. Not unless we let them be. If we have enough desire, we can get over, around, or through any limiting conditions and keep right on moving ahead. But it does take heart. If our heart doesn’t get there first, the rest of us never will.
Self-esteem requires overcoming obstacles like fear and paralyzing hesitancy. If we want to earn our own respect and admiration, we must practice making a mighty leap with heart and mind, perhaps several times a day, before our muscles will follow.
Afraid of a social occasion? Visualize yourself as the belle of the ball before you ever put on your dancing shoes. Nervous about a job interview? Practice seeing yourself relaxed, confident, and impressive. Wondering how a new project will come out? Get your heart and mind there ahead of time. Know that your project will be a smashing success and fun, too! The actuality will follow just as the feet move in the direction the body leans.
Overcoming obstacles is a matter of heart over hardship.
February 5 Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well.
People who want to learn more about self-esteem probably fall into two major categories: those concerned for themselves and those whose energies are directed at the self-esteem of someone else. After all, low self-esteem is about as limiting a handicap as a person can have. To see a loved one suffering self-esteem trouble is to suffer yourself in no small way.
But what is the best way to help someone else? Some buy that person books, tapes, lists of affirmations. Or they send their loved ones to workshops and seminars. All of these may help, but by far the best thing we can offer is our own steady friendship. This means becoming a multifaceted mirror in which our loved ones can see themselves reflected in a more positive light.
A multifaceted mirror reflects different images at different times. Sometimes we reflect encouragement, sometimes challenge, sometimes tough love, and at other times simply a safe harbor where the other can rest a while. People make much more impact on each other than any inanimate teaching guide.
Just being there for someone else is often the best help.
February 6 We possess only the happiness we are able to understand.
We could all be happy if we didn’t set so many conditions on it. We, with all our ifs and whens, are the ones who handicap our own pursuit. Unless we choose to, we don’t have to work or even wait for happiness for another minute. If we drop our conditions, we can have it right now.
A wise person once said that happiness is learning to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable. If that definition seems unlikely—think again. What bars us from happiness as much as our interpretations of what is indispensable, impossible, or intolerable? What would happen if we were wise and mature enough to reconsider what we can’t accept or do without? Then what would stand between us and happiness?
None of us can bend the mysterious rules of the universe. Just claims will often be denied, gifts will be distributed randomly, tragedy will strike the innocent. This is the world as it is. When we can accept that, we can stop quarreling with fate and learn to love life for its own sake. Thus we accept the happiness that was available all along.
I don’t have to approve of the world’s ways to accept them; I don’t have to have my own way to be happy.
February 7 Plans get you into things, but you got to work your way out.
Self-esteem sags when the tasks we intend to do somehow never get done. This is especially frustrating for disciplined, hardworking people who are anything but lazy. How can we be so busy, so active, so tired at night, without crossing off key items on our things-to-do list? We are the ones who made the list, after all. We are the ones who wanted those tasks out of the way. What’s going on here?
Over preparation may be part of the problem. Unaware of our pattern of behavior, we may be getting ready at the expense of getting the job done. Do we really have to rehearse our lines a hundred times before we ask for a raise? Must the spare bedroom be completely redecorated before we invite our old school chum to visit? Should we not send a gift at all if it isn’t a perfect gift?
Fear of finishing is one form of the fear of failure. Jobs that we string out with endless planning and preparation are often those with chancy, nervous-making outcomes. To finish them is to risk disappointment or perhaps to remove our last excuse for not going ahead with the next step. Usually it’s not the undone task that’s the real problem, but the fear behind the stalling.
Greater self-awareness gives me greater insights about my true motivations.
February 8 Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up.
Good fortune sometimes gives us a special person or place that we can run to when the going gets rough. Perhaps, for us, this refuge was a comforting, devoted aunt, a tender grandma who never saw anything but good in us, or an old schoolteacher or coach who helped us believe in ourselves. Perhaps it was a hiding place on the side of the garage beneath the lilacs or a dreaming place, like a tree house or shady back porch. When time and circumstances take these people and places from us, the world gets scarier.
As we grow up we need to find new sanctuaries. In addition to caring friends, perhaps we find that a quiet library or a lakeside is a calming place to think through our problems and restore our souls. Most reliable of all, perhaps, as we grow to greater maturity, is our own inner space that is not under the direction of, or influenced by, any other person.
Our ability to heal ourselves, to maintain our self-esteem, depends on our familiarity with this inner retreat. When so many outside factors are beyond our control, the shelter inside ourselves can make all the difference.
There is a sanctuary in my own heart.
February 9 If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm.
Riding through life on bad attitudes is a lot like riding down the freeway on bad tires. It’s bumpy, dangerous, and insecure. Any bump in the road can cause a blowout and leave us stranded. Because the journey through life is bumpy at best, it only makes sense to check out our attitudes from time to time. How safely are we traveling? Can we look forward to miles of happy progress, or is an accident in the works?
Answering the following questions will give us a quick “attitude check.”
February 10At times, although one is perfectly in the right, ones’s legs tremble. At other times, although one is completely in the wrong, birds sing in ones’s soul.
In many ways, human beings are perverse creatures. Some good behaviors—like apologizing—may give us bad feelings. Likewise some very bad behaviors—like telling someone off—may make us feel very good indeed. That’s why we can’t allow our feelings to dictate our behavior.
O course it’s important to identify our feelings. Feelings tell us a great many things. A big part of emotional health is coming to understand and respect how we feel. But too often feelings are blind guides to what is right or wrong.
Because feelings are habits, they wind around old behaviors like iron filings around a magnet. Anything we do often enough we will come to feel comfortable doing. The worrier is comfortable worrying; the workaholic, working; and liar, lying. But no matter how comfortable we feel, it doesn’t necessarily follow that these behaviors will lead to a full spiritual life based on positive self-esteem. It’s important to know how we feel. But it’s even more important to know that our feelings have memory but no conscience.
As I practice healthy behaviors, my feelings will follow along.
February 11Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.
Healthy people don’t go out looking for pain, frustration, and failure. Some of us who have low self-esteem, however, are seduced, validated, and comforted by these downbeat experiences. We are the good, hardworking, long-suffering people that other people call martyrs.
Like everyone else, our self-esteem is based on our self-image. But unlike everyone else, our self-image is practically nonexistent; when we look in a mirror, we see others. Somehow, somewhere, we came to believe our needs weren’t important or that normal self-interest was a sin. So we learned to justify our existence by rendering service. Because “they” came first, we took second best or nothing at all, gave beyond our limits, and exhausted ourselves. Perhaps we told ourselves that it was “God’s will” that we serve and suffer, suffer and serve until we drop.
But now we are becoming wiser. We realize that our wants and needs are as legitimate as everyone else’s. We know that the good God who gave us intelligence and free will didn’t intend for us to return these gifts, too trade them in for slavery. We’re learning to claim what was ours all along.
As martyrs slowly abandon themselves, the first thing they leave behind is their self-esteem.
February 12If everyone contemplated the infinite rather than fixed the drains, many of us would die of cholera.
Decent unpretentiousness is always admired. But extreme modesty is a terrible handicap to self-esteem. The tendency, for example, to aggrandize other people’s talents and abilities, to glamorize their professions and their personal lives, can only demean our own talents and jobs and personal lifestyles. Because “they” have or do so much, it only follows that whatever we have or do is little, small, and insignificant.
Oftentimes, extreme modesty is an attitudinal hiding place. “Important people should have better self-esteem than I do,” we may say to ourselves. Or, “Lowly as I am, it would be ridiculous to think of myself as an equal of somebody really gifted.”
Yet everyone who makes a contribution is important. The person who changes the bulbs in streetlights provides protection to everyone. The trash hauler’s work prevents epidemics of disease. The person who cooks dinner of a child is making no less a contribution than the famous chef who cooks dinner for a roomful of strangers. All of us are entitled to be proud of who we are and what we do. And we are obliged to honor our own contribution if we want to feel good about ourselves.
Excessive modesty robs me of my self-respect.
February 13Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
Double-talk is the sly and slippery language we use to slither away from the truth. Like all other conning behavior, double-talk usually hurts us more than those we are trying to fool. What happens is that we ourselves get taken in, confused, and misled by words that say one thing but mean something else. With enough practice, we get so bad at it, we’re good—or good at it, we’re bad. See? That’s how double-talk works.
Most double-talk is designed to turn attention away from our real motives for doing or not doing something. “I didn’t have time,” for example, very often means “That wasn’t important to me.” “Iforgot” also says the same thing. “I don’t need it” may mean “I don’t want to put out the effort,” and “That’s dumb” often means “That’s scary.”
Double-talk is one of the self-defeating habits that keeps our self-esteem tethered close to the ground. If we’re hiding laziness and self-centeredness behind slick words, we’re weighing ourselves down. Integrity will not be ours if we insist that black is white—or even dark gray.
Self-esteem is built on truth.
February 14Love is not easy. Love costs.
Sometimes we forget the difference between symbols and substance when Valentine’s Day rolls around. Spurred on by all the hearts, cupids, and lacy cards we see in the stores, we may unconsciously stake our self-esteem on whether or not we’re remembered with a box of chocolates or a pretty bouquet. Of course we want to be and have a sweetheart on this official feast day of love! Who wouldn’t?
But that doesn’t mean that those of us who aren’t romantically involved are either unloved or unlovable. Romantic tokens are flattering and fun—but tokens aren’t love itself. Many of the valentine tokens being given today are inspired by a sense of obligation—because old Hubert or Billy or Sam knows what’s good for him! Some are even given to reduce guilt or to show off. Love itself costs a lot more than long-stemmed roses or even diamonds.
Real love is measured out in steadiness, commitment, and unselfishness over the long haul. It has to do with willingness and forgiveness and just plain fortitude. It means being consistently mindful of someone else’s welfare. If we are engaged in such relationships, we are fortunate indeed, whether or not we have someone on hand today to tell us how wonderful we are. It’s love itself that’s wonderful, not the tokens.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
February 15 “It’s the sin of pride,” said the homely woman to her confessor. “Every time I pass a mirror, I’m overcome by my own beauty.” “I wouldn’t worry about it, my dear,” answered the priest. “That’s no sin, that’s just a mistake.”
It’s a fact. More than a few of our pomposities have as little basis in fact as the homely woman’s supposed beauty. The problem that we’re willing to admit may be wholly different from the problem behind the masks we wear.
“I’m too generous,” some of us might say in trying to explain away our inability to say no. “I’m too honest,” we may say of our tendency to be insensitive and blunt. “I’m too trusting,” we say of our chronic victimhood. But these are mistakes rather than admissions.
All faults described as an excess of virtue are really backhanded compliments to ourselves. They are old lies, not new truths. It isn’t possible to be too generous, honest, or trusting. The problem is not excess, but what we lack. Generosity without prudence is foolhardiness, honesty without compassion is ruthlessness, trust without discernment is masochism. We need to peel off the masks and work on our real problems if we’re going to make real progress.
Self-flattery is a poor substitute for honest self-appreciation.
February 16 Bacchus hath drowned more men than Neptune.
Statistics say that there are about 12 million alcoholics in this country; that’s a lot of sick people! Experts have further estimated that every alcoholic’s sickness has a major effect on the lives of at least 10 other people, including family, friends, and coworkers. Thus the “body count” of the afflicted and the affected goes up to 120 million-ten times as many people as live in New York or Los Angeles.
Few of us reading these pages, or any pages, have been untouched by our own or someone else’s problem drinking. As the epidemic rages on, it is well for us to remember that recovery is a personal decision. As much as we hope and pray for the drinking to stop, we can’t force anyone else to change. We can refuse sick alcoholics our money and our company-we often have to do this for our own survival-but the decision to change must originate with them, not us.
The most powerful tool we have is the example of our own lives. The only force we can bring to bear is the moral force of our own health, serenity, and compassion. We can turn on the light and put out the welcome mat, but mostly we have to get on with our own lives.
My self-esteem hinges on my own battles, not someone else’s.
February 17 As far as the stars are from the earth, and as different as fire is from water, so much do self-interest and integrity differ.
Self-preservation is the strongest instinct of humankind. When push comes to shove, all our noble resolutions go out the window when we feel too threatened or at the end of our endurance. The fact is that we do what we have to do to survive. Or what we think we have to do. Fostering self-esteem often means reinterpreting what we “have to do” to protect ourselves.
The self-talk we use to filter and process outside reality is a good index of our survival mentality. What do we say to ourselves when we’re busy, but someone has a legitimate claim on our time? When we’re tired, but someone asks our help? When a community crisis calls for talents and energies much like our own? Our response depends on our view of the world and of ourselves. Is the world a garden that needs our tending or a jungle that’s too dangerous to enter? Our self-talk gives us clues.
“It won’t do any good,” “Why should I?” “It’s none of my business,” “I can’t,” and “I don’t have time,” are defensive phrases banged out on jungle drums. “Maybe I can help,” “Why shouldn’t I?” “At least I can show up and give it a shot,” are the responses of confident, growing people who have broadened and deepened their definition of self-interest.
My concern for others mirrors my growing self-respect.
February 18 Anxiety is the essential condition of intellectual and artistic creation.
Too much stress can wear down our resistance to assaults on self-esteem as well as to physical disease. At one time or another, we’ve all had trouble holding on simply because we were too tired to fight back. We gave in to fatigue. But we mustn’t draw the conclusion that stress is always as harmful as fatigue is.
Fatigue is a matter of energy management-making sure we get enough recreation and sleep. Because exhaustion saps any program of growth, it’s absolutely necessary that we rearrange our lives to make room for adequate rest. But productive stress is also necessary if we’re going to experience success. Any “up and doing” creates anxiety, and anxiety creates the stress. Whenever we stretch to be more tomorrow than we were yesterday there is going to be stress-so we’d better rest up for it!
If we’re translating the stress in our lives into positive experiences, we’re elevating our self-esteem. Many of the behaviors that become the building blocks of self-esteem are wretchedly uncomfortable at first. Even thinking about them may make us break out in a cold sweat. Of course, there will be stress-but it’s the kind of stress that creates.
If self-esteem were bread, stress would be the yeast in the recipe.
February 19 Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Nature’s inexorable imperative.
Some of us have pretty firm, even rigid, ideas about the way things “ought” to be. We want people and places to stay the same as they always were. Sometimes our unhappiness with change is simply nostalgia; part of our youth disappears when the corner drugstore gives way to a parking lot. But sometimes our resistance to change is more serious-as if the battles we’ve already fought took such a toll that all we can think of is digging in right where we are.
Yet all growth requires change and all change is a matter of adjustment. Perhaps we need to move forward or backward, lighten up or tighten up, let go of something old and reach out for something new. Perhaps we need to reconsider a negative attitude or be willing to do something we’ve never done before.
The circumstances and characteristics that bolstered our youthful self-esteem are sure to change as the years go by. As reality changes, so must our perspective change if we are to stay fully alive for all of our days. Adaptation is not only necessary-it’s natural.
The survival of my self-esteem requires adaptation.
February 20 You only become real when…your fur has been rubbed off.
Self-esteem is the reward for peeling away our fakery, looking squarely at our character defects, and building on our strengths. Whether we’re trying to recover from disaster or simply trying to get more out of life, all of us are engaged in the process of becoming real.
The author of The Velveteen Rabbit makes the point that we become real when we are loved a great deal. And love always means being used. Not put on a shelf, not safely out of harm’s way. Love is not, and never has been, safe.
We get real when we become involved and thus get our “our fur rubbed off.” Maybe we throw ourselves into a cause that seems doomed but is too important to ignore. Maybe we spend time with a troubled child who is too distressed right now to respect us, let alone thank us. Any conflict or discomfort we take on for the sake of some greater good is worth it because it’s real. Never do we feel so alive as when we’re trading off a little fur for a lot of love.
What’s real in life is gloves-off, go-for-broke involvement.
February 21 He that can’t endure the bad will not live to see the good.
Many once-jolly travelers on the road to recovering self-esteem have turned into wary travelers indeed. Maybe we’ve started out on this journey many times before and run into so many problems we had to turn back. Perhaps we used unreliable maps or timetables, or our traveling companions proved untrustworthy. So now we’re guarded: we’re afraid to expect too much.
Yet the pursuit of any treasure requires risk. Little progress will be made if our first concern is to avoid disappointments. In spite of our discouraging past experiences, we need to try again. Perhaps we need to get going again with our affirmations, even if they didn’t prove magical last time. Maybe a new group would help or even a different, more-realistic attitude on our own part.
Might we be disappointed again?? Yes indeed. The affirmations may stick in our throats, some meetings may turn out to be boring, the friends we choose may be far more flawed than we expected. But partial as they are, all of these efforts combine to get us there. Standing on guard won’t do it.
Perseverance is my passage to improved self-esteem.
February 22 Procrastination is the thief of time.
There are hundreds of pages in this book concerning self-esteem. Some encourage thinking, others acting, others understanding. Yet all that thinking, questioning, and understanding will be useless to some people; useless because they’re facing a major decision that’s blocking their progress. Until they’re willing to take action, all the insight in the world isn’t going to help.
Any work on self-esteem while we’re acting out an addiction or an affair or staying involved in some on-going dishonesty like a dead relationship will bear little fruit.
Preparing to make drastic decisions can, of course, take time. And any effort made to get to the frame of mind where the decision can be made is valid. But let there be no confusion as to why we don’t feel better about ourselves. The problem is us and our unwillingness to act.
Postponing my decisions often postpones my relief.
February 23 Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it.
Sexual chemistry is a curious thing indeed. Who can explain the sudden, overwhelming attraction of one to another-perhaps a very unlikely other? Burned as we may have been, once the sparks start to fly we climb right back on that emotional roller coaster. And once on that wild ride, we’re hell bent to take every dip and curve.
Yet emotional thrill rides are rarely worth the price of the ticket. As high as the highs may be, the lows come all too hard and soon. By sacrificing cool rationality to hot emotion, we trade off too much self-respect. By heedlessly becoming involved in relationships that are doomed from the start, we demean ourselves. In effect, we play with our self-esteem when we knowingly play with unwise relationships.
The fact is that we can’t afford it. It is one thing to feel attraction, but quite another to follow it. While the temptation may be great, let us see whether any new relationship can stand before the tribunal of reason before we skip off to the roller coaster again. Reason should be the companion, not the enemy, of emotion.
Foolish love affairs can cost more than the time wasted on them.
February 24 Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.
Many of our employers promote concepts like “team spirit” and “company loyalty.” In a world increasingly ruled by competitive specialization, cooperative effort is a must, of course. If we want to keep our jobs we also want our companies to stay in business, to make a profit. We give in order to get; we’re willing to do what’s necessary and good.
But there’s a dark side to being defined as a “team member.” We can abandon common sense and lose creative self-reliance if we let ourselves be completely swallowed up by any team or company. Sharon’s company, for example, thinks in terms of “units,” not people. Like many others, this company feels free, and is free, to pull up stakes and move entire operations from one end of the country to another. The disruption of human lives is never considered. Rumors of such a move sent Sharon to a counselor who told her to take matters into her own hands by making an A-B-C list of job opportunities she could pursue if the pullout actually happened. It all sounded good until the end of the session when Sharon said, “Yes, but when are they going to tell us what our A-B-C choices are? When are they going to come and tell us what to do?
They aren’t. The choices are ours, and the responsibility is as well.
Passive passengers often get driven where they don’t want to go.
February 25 Bravery is being the only one who knows you are afraid.
Heroes, we think, are basically better people than we are. Surely they have great self-esteem. That’s why they can do such extraordinary things. They don’t seem to feel fear. That’s why they can charge a machine-gun nest or rescue someone from a fire or fearlessly respond to any life-threatening emergency. But, in fact, our assumptions about heroes may not be true at all. These people may have been terribly afraid, but they went forward anyway. Perhaps that is the essence of heroism-to go forward anyway, afraid or not.
What seems routine to others may be terribly frightening to us. For some it may be a genuine act of heroism to apply for a job if there is a great fear of rejection. It may take great courage to speak up to a browbeater after a long life of passivity. To express our honest feelings may make us break out in a cold sweat.
Difficult though they are, these nonnewsworthy acts may be just what it takes to crack the self-esteem barrier. The point is not whether we are afraid, but whether we do what needs to be done. That’s the hero’s way.
Any time I defy fear, I perform an act of heroism.
February 26 Unresolved anger is often the hidden source of low self-esteem.
What we don’t see, we can’t understand. What we don’t understand, we can’t influence. And when that blind spot relates to the source of our self-esteem, the results can be devastating.
Hurt that has been denied, mislabeled, or unrecognized still exists, no matter how long ago we were wounded. In fact, such hurt-that is the hard core of all anger-is all the more potent for not being recognized or for being called something else. The trouble with burying something alive is that it will devour us from the inside. Buried does not necessarily mean dead.
At the core of much low self-esteem is just such a hard knot of anger. Anger over the way we were treated as children, rights that were denied, kindnesses that should have been there for us but were not. Love, encouragement, support, perhaps even the basic safety that everyone has a right to-none of these were to be had. Buried, that collection of hurts turned into anger and seeped out sideways. Sometimes the seeping turns into a flood. Often it becomes simply a prevailing state of being-we are just always angry, always hostile, always operating with a short fuse. That doesn’t make us very attractive people. To say the least, we’re not fun to be with. And so the anger over our long-ago hurt generates loneliness and rejection even today. Lest our tomorrows be affected as well, let us own up to our buried anger.
Hidden anger can kill me. I must recognize it and address it.
February 27 Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor shall be.
Perfectionism is complex and subtle. Out loud, few of us would say, “Perfection is my only acceptable standard,” But in the privacy of our own minds, many of us talk out of the other side of our mouths: “I must always give 110 percent.” “I must never fail a friend.” “For winners, there’s really only first place and no place.”
Setting a high standard and holding yourself to it is certainly admirable behavior. Bo one who shoots too low accomplishes very much. But there is a big difference between striving for a high standard and expecting yourself to achieve it every time out. No one can “always” put out a 110 percent effort; there are days when we only have 80 percent to give. No one “never” drops the ball or bungles an opportunity; even world-class performers have their off days. And first place is only as sweet as it is because it’s not a permanent position-not for anyone. In life, there is no such thing as a perfect score.
Impossible demands on self make self-esteem impossible, too. If our approval is only won by superhuman feats, we won’t have much to cheer about. How much healthier and happier we will be when we eliminate words like always and never from our inner code of conduct. We need to hear more applause.
My opinion of myself must not rest on words like always and never.
February 28 Pride is the mask of one’s own faults.
Fear has many disguises. Sometimes it puts on sexy clothes and talks in the voice of list. Sometimes it wears the mask of anger or greed or envy. And sometimes fear pretends to be pride. “I’m smart and strong,” we say to ourselves. “I don’t need help. Whatever I have to do, I can do alone.” These are the kinds of things we say when we refuse to join a group or put off asking someone to be our sponsor or even confide in a friend.
But is it pride or fear talking? Pride takes the illogical stand that in spite of the pain we’ve lived with for so long we really are better than others. Fear, on the other hand, whisperingly suggests that others may be better than we are, so we’d be safer to hold back so they’ll never know. Reaching out for any kind of help would make us vulnerable.
But no one grows as well without support. Strength and pride aside, we need other people’s input, insights, and encouragement. We need people we can trust to hold us accountable. We need to hear about their struggles and successes. When we insist on going it alone, it’s usually not because we’re more independent and self-sufficient than other people. It’s because we’re afraid.
I need a community of peers for support.
Low self-esteem is often grounded in a sense of vulnerability. When we feel threatened and defenseless, we hang onto our security as hard as we can for fear of losing something. Security is the assurance that nothing will be lost.
Of course everybody needs a reliable port in a storm. It’s careless and foolish not to provide for hard times. But an overdependence on security can actually make hard times of good times. It can make us unwilling to think new thoughts, to dare new actions, or ever take a risk. In our fear of rocking the boat, we may never pull up anchor and leave the dock at all.
Wondering and questioning are dangerous activities for security-tethered people. Any new information could jeopardize the status quo. Yet challenging the status quo is what self-improvement is all about. Without asking new questions, we can’t get any new answers. Without venturing down new paths, we can’t make any new discoveries. How are we going to feel good about ourselves if we don’t do anything to feel good about?
Many wonderful “could be’s” are possible for all of us—but only if we’re willing to take a few chances.
If security is the assurance that I will lose nothing that I already have, it’s also the assurance that I will gain nothing new.
February 2 My God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me, I cannot know for certain where it will end…but I will not fear, for you are ever with me.
If self-esteem means confidence and confidence means being sure about what’s going to happen, then we’re all out of luck in the self-esteem department. None of us knows the answers to the biggest, most important question in life. If that fact makes us terribly insecure, we’re going to be in for a whole lot of fear, worry, and anxiety.
The truly confident person knows that life is much more of a process and a journey than a matter of answers and destinations. It is one thing not to know where the road leads—but quite another to be paralyzed because we don’t know. If the open road makes us too frightened and insecure, we will probably miss all the lovely scenery along the way. And we won’t learn the lessons of the journey.
Confidence arises from self, not circumstances. Just because the road is uncertain doesn’t mean that we are. If we have a Higher Power walking just ahead of us, we have all the security we need.
Confidence in God turns my insecurity into trust.
February 3 There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it.
What do people say of us behind our backs? While the question itself is unsettling, most of us have wondered about it. Maybe they say we are bossy or perfectionistic, stubborn or uncommunicative—those things wouldn’t be too bad. But we wouldn’t want to be thought of as vain. That would be embarrassing.
Because we have learned to preen in privacy and boast discreetly, we like to believe that our conceits are invisible. But the fact is that human nature is riddled through and through with inflated pride. Our difficulty is that we are too vain to admit and accept our own vanity.
If you don’t believe it, check it out. How many times do you mentally replay an embarrassing situation to come up with a clever comeback or rationalize a mistake? Do you overreact when someone gets a laugh at your expense? Does a small slight grind away at you for days or weeks? Do you let battles of will grow out of all sensible proportion? Most of us do all of those things to some degree or another. Some of us are even vain about our imagined lack of vanity! But there’s no way around it. We are all vain people. Our challenge is to accept this truth about ourselves so we can actively bring it under control.
No one is superhuman. My healthy self-regard is based on acceptance of human nature.
February 4 Each handicap is like a hurdler in a steeplechase. When you ride up to it, if you throw your heart over, the horse will go along, too.
Too old to get hired? Too short to make the team? Too shy to ask for a date? These are just conditions, not insurmountable obstacles. Not unless we let them be. If we have enough desire, we can get over, around, or through any limiting conditions and keep right on moving ahead. But it does take heart. If our heart doesn’t get there first, the rest of us never will.
Self-esteem requires overcoming obstacles like fear and paralyzing hesitancy. If we want to earn our own respect and admiration, we must practice making a mighty leap with heart and mind, perhaps several times a day, before our muscles will follow.
Afraid of a social occasion? Visualize yourself as the belle of the ball before you ever put on your dancing shoes. Nervous about a job interview? Practice seeing yourself relaxed, confident, and impressive. Wondering how a new project will come out? Get your heart and mind there ahead of time. Know that your project will be a smashing success and fun, too! The actuality will follow just as the feet move in the direction the body leans.
Overcoming obstacles is a matter of heart over hardship.
February 5 Sympathy is a supporting atmosphere, and in it we unfold easily and well.
People who want to learn more about self-esteem probably fall into two major categories: those concerned for themselves and those whose energies are directed at the self-esteem of someone else. After all, low self-esteem is about as limiting a handicap as a person can have. To see a loved one suffering self-esteem trouble is to suffer yourself in no small way.
But what is the best way to help someone else? Some buy that person books, tapes, lists of affirmations. Or they send their loved ones to workshops and seminars. All of these may help, but by far the best thing we can offer is our own steady friendship. This means becoming a multifaceted mirror in which our loved ones can see themselves reflected in a more positive light.
A multifaceted mirror reflects different images at different times. Sometimes we reflect encouragement, sometimes challenge, sometimes tough love, and at other times simply a safe harbor where the other can rest a while. People make much more impact on each other than any inanimate teaching guide.
Just being there for someone else is often the best help.
February 6 We possess only the happiness we are able to understand.
We could all be happy if we didn’t set so many conditions on it. We, with all our ifs and whens, are the ones who handicap our own pursuit. Unless we choose to, we don’t have to work or even wait for happiness for another minute. If we drop our conditions, we can have it right now.
A wise person once said that happiness is learning to accept the impossible, do without the indispensable, and bear the intolerable. If that definition seems unlikely—think again. What bars us from happiness as much as our interpretations of what is indispensable, impossible, or intolerable? What would happen if we were wise and mature enough to reconsider what we can’t accept or do without? Then what would stand between us and happiness?
None of us can bend the mysterious rules of the universe. Just claims will often be denied, gifts will be distributed randomly, tragedy will strike the innocent. This is the world as it is. When we can accept that, we can stop quarreling with fate and learn to love life for its own sake. Thus we accept the happiness that was available all along.
I don’t have to approve of the world’s ways to accept them; I don’t have to have my own way to be happy.
February 7 Plans get you into things, but you got to work your way out.
Self-esteem sags when the tasks we intend to do somehow never get done. This is especially frustrating for disciplined, hardworking people who are anything but lazy. How can we be so busy, so active, so tired at night, without crossing off key items on our things-to-do list? We are the ones who made the list, after all. We are the ones who wanted those tasks out of the way. What’s going on here?
Over preparation may be part of the problem. Unaware of our pattern of behavior, we may be getting ready at the expense of getting the job done. Do we really have to rehearse our lines a hundred times before we ask for a raise? Must the spare bedroom be completely redecorated before we invite our old school chum to visit? Should we not send a gift at all if it isn’t a perfect gift?
Fear of finishing is one form of the fear of failure. Jobs that we string out with endless planning and preparation are often those with chancy, nervous-making outcomes. To finish them is to risk disappointment or perhaps to remove our last excuse for not going ahead with the next step. Usually it’s not the undone task that’s the real problem, but the fear behind the stalling.
Greater self-awareness gives me greater insights about my true motivations.
February 8 Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up.
Good fortune sometimes gives us a special person or place that we can run to when the going gets rough. Perhaps, for us, this refuge was a comforting, devoted aunt, a tender grandma who never saw anything but good in us, or an old schoolteacher or coach who helped us believe in ourselves. Perhaps it was a hiding place on the side of the garage beneath the lilacs or a dreaming place, like a tree house or shady back porch. When time and circumstances take these people and places from us, the world gets scarier.
As we grow up we need to find new sanctuaries. In addition to caring friends, perhaps we find that a quiet library or a lakeside is a calming place to think through our problems and restore our souls. Most reliable of all, perhaps, as we grow to greater maturity, is our own inner space that is not under the direction of, or influenced by, any other person.
Our ability to heal ourselves, to maintain our self-esteem, depends on our familiarity with this inner retreat. When so many outside factors are beyond our control, the shelter inside ourselves can make all the difference.
There is a sanctuary in my own heart.
February 9 If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm.
Riding through life on bad attitudes is a lot like riding down the freeway on bad tires. It’s bumpy, dangerous, and insecure. Any bump in the road can cause a blowout and leave us stranded. Because the journey through life is bumpy at best, it only makes sense to check out our attitudes from time to time. How safely are we traveling? Can we look forward to miles of happy progress, or is an accident in the works?
Answering the following questions will give us a quick “attitude check.”
- Do I see life as challenging and interesting, or do I see it as a painful struggle that must be endured?
- Do I actively take steps to promote my own well-being, or do I passively wait for someone else to solve my problems?
- Am I truly open to new ideas, or do I refuse to let go of old, familiar ways of thinking?
- Do I make my own decisions, or do I allow other people to direct the course of my life?
- Do I live comfortably in the present, or do I fear the future and bemoan the past?
- Do I accept the imperfections of myself and others, or am I often upset and irritated by human imperfection?
February 10At times, although one is perfectly in the right, ones’s legs tremble. At other times, although one is completely in the wrong, birds sing in ones’s soul.
In many ways, human beings are perverse creatures. Some good behaviors—like apologizing—may give us bad feelings. Likewise some very bad behaviors—like telling someone off—may make us feel very good indeed. That’s why we can’t allow our feelings to dictate our behavior.
O course it’s important to identify our feelings. Feelings tell us a great many things. A big part of emotional health is coming to understand and respect how we feel. But too often feelings are blind guides to what is right or wrong.
Because feelings are habits, they wind around old behaviors like iron filings around a magnet. Anything we do often enough we will come to feel comfortable doing. The worrier is comfortable worrying; the workaholic, working; and liar, lying. But no matter how comfortable we feel, it doesn’t necessarily follow that these behaviors will lead to a full spiritual life based on positive self-esteem. It’s important to know how we feel. But it’s even more important to know that our feelings have memory but no conscience.
As I practice healthy behaviors, my feelings will follow along.
February 11Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.
Healthy people don’t go out looking for pain, frustration, and failure. Some of us who have low self-esteem, however, are seduced, validated, and comforted by these downbeat experiences. We are the good, hardworking, long-suffering people that other people call martyrs.
Like everyone else, our self-esteem is based on our self-image. But unlike everyone else, our self-image is practically nonexistent; when we look in a mirror, we see others. Somehow, somewhere, we came to believe our needs weren’t important or that normal self-interest was a sin. So we learned to justify our existence by rendering service. Because “they” came first, we took second best or nothing at all, gave beyond our limits, and exhausted ourselves. Perhaps we told ourselves that it was “God’s will” that we serve and suffer, suffer and serve until we drop.
But now we are becoming wiser. We realize that our wants and needs are as legitimate as everyone else’s. We know that the good God who gave us intelligence and free will didn’t intend for us to return these gifts, too trade them in for slavery. We’re learning to claim what was ours all along.
As martyrs slowly abandon themselves, the first thing they leave behind is their self-esteem.
February 12If everyone contemplated the infinite rather than fixed the drains, many of us would die of cholera.
Decent unpretentiousness is always admired. But extreme modesty is a terrible handicap to self-esteem. The tendency, for example, to aggrandize other people’s talents and abilities, to glamorize their professions and their personal lives, can only demean our own talents and jobs and personal lifestyles. Because “they” have or do so much, it only follows that whatever we have or do is little, small, and insignificant.
Oftentimes, extreme modesty is an attitudinal hiding place. “Important people should have better self-esteem than I do,” we may say to ourselves. Or, “Lowly as I am, it would be ridiculous to think of myself as an equal of somebody really gifted.”
Yet everyone who makes a contribution is important. The person who changes the bulbs in streetlights provides protection to everyone. The trash hauler’s work prevents epidemics of disease. The person who cooks dinner of a child is making no less a contribution than the famous chef who cooks dinner for a roomful of strangers. All of us are entitled to be proud of who we are and what we do. And we are obliged to honor our own contribution if we want to feel good about ourselves.
Excessive modesty robs me of my self-respect.
February 13Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality.
Double-talk is the sly and slippery language we use to slither away from the truth. Like all other conning behavior, double-talk usually hurts us more than those we are trying to fool. What happens is that we ourselves get taken in, confused, and misled by words that say one thing but mean something else. With enough practice, we get so bad at it, we’re good—or good at it, we’re bad. See? That’s how double-talk works.
Most double-talk is designed to turn attention away from our real motives for doing or not doing something. “I didn’t have time,” for example, very often means “That wasn’t important to me.” “Iforgot” also says the same thing. “I don’t need it” may mean “I don’t want to put out the effort,” and “That’s dumb” often means “That’s scary.”
Double-talk is one of the self-defeating habits that keeps our self-esteem tethered close to the ground. If we’re hiding laziness and self-centeredness behind slick words, we’re weighing ourselves down. Integrity will not be ours if we insist that black is white—or even dark gray.
Self-esteem is built on truth.
February 14Love is not easy. Love costs.
Sometimes we forget the difference between symbols and substance when Valentine’s Day rolls around. Spurred on by all the hearts, cupids, and lacy cards we see in the stores, we may unconsciously stake our self-esteem on whether or not we’re remembered with a box of chocolates or a pretty bouquet. Of course we want to be and have a sweetheart on this official feast day of love! Who wouldn’t?
But that doesn’t mean that those of us who aren’t romantically involved are either unloved or unlovable. Romantic tokens are flattering and fun—but tokens aren’t love itself. Many of the valentine tokens being given today are inspired by a sense of obligation—because old Hubert or Billy or Sam knows what’s good for him! Some are even given to reduce guilt or to show off. Love itself costs a lot more than long-stemmed roses or even diamonds.
Real love is measured out in steadiness, commitment, and unselfishness over the long haul. It has to do with willingness and forgiveness and just plain fortitude. It means being consistently mindful of someone else’s welfare. If we are engaged in such relationships, we are fortunate indeed, whether or not we have someone on hand today to tell us how wonderful we are. It’s love itself that’s wonderful, not the tokens.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
February 15 “It’s the sin of pride,” said the homely woman to her confessor. “Every time I pass a mirror, I’m overcome by my own beauty.” “I wouldn’t worry about it, my dear,” answered the priest. “That’s no sin, that’s just a mistake.”
It’s a fact. More than a few of our pomposities have as little basis in fact as the homely woman’s supposed beauty. The problem that we’re willing to admit may be wholly different from the problem behind the masks we wear.
“I’m too generous,” some of us might say in trying to explain away our inability to say no. “I’m too honest,” we may say of our tendency to be insensitive and blunt. “I’m too trusting,” we say of our chronic victimhood. But these are mistakes rather than admissions.
All faults described as an excess of virtue are really backhanded compliments to ourselves. They are old lies, not new truths. It isn’t possible to be too generous, honest, or trusting. The problem is not excess, but what we lack. Generosity without prudence is foolhardiness, honesty without compassion is ruthlessness, trust without discernment is masochism. We need to peel off the masks and work on our real problems if we’re going to make real progress.
Self-flattery is a poor substitute for honest self-appreciation.
February 16 Bacchus hath drowned more men than Neptune.
Statistics say that there are about 12 million alcoholics in this country; that’s a lot of sick people! Experts have further estimated that every alcoholic’s sickness has a major effect on the lives of at least 10 other people, including family, friends, and coworkers. Thus the “body count” of the afflicted and the affected goes up to 120 million-ten times as many people as live in New York or Los Angeles.
Few of us reading these pages, or any pages, have been untouched by our own or someone else’s problem drinking. As the epidemic rages on, it is well for us to remember that recovery is a personal decision. As much as we hope and pray for the drinking to stop, we can’t force anyone else to change. We can refuse sick alcoholics our money and our company-we often have to do this for our own survival-but the decision to change must originate with them, not us.
The most powerful tool we have is the example of our own lives. The only force we can bring to bear is the moral force of our own health, serenity, and compassion. We can turn on the light and put out the welcome mat, but mostly we have to get on with our own lives.
My self-esteem hinges on my own battles, not someone else’s.
February 17 As far as the stars are from the earth, and as different as fire is from water, so much do self-interest and integrity differ.
Self-preservation is the strongest instinct of humankind. When push comes to shove, all our noble resolutions go out the window when we feel too threatened or at the end of our endurance. The fact is that we do what we have to do to survive. Or what we think we have to do. Fostering self-esteem often means reinterpreting what we “have to do” to protect ourselves.
The self-talk we use to filter and process outside reality is a good index of our survival mentality. What do we say to ourselves when we’re busy, but someone has a legitimate claim on our time? When we’re tired, but someone asks our help? When a community crisis calls for talents and energies much like our own? Our response depends on our view of the world and of ourselves. Is the world a garden that needs our tending or a jungle that’s too dangerous to enter? Our self-talk gives us clues.
“It won’t do any good,” “Why should I?” “It’s none of my business,” “I can’t,” and “I don’t have time,” are defensive phrases banged out on jungle drums. “Maybe I can help,” “Why shouldn’t I?” “At least I can show up and give it a shot,” are the responses of confident, growing people who have broadened and deepened their definition of self-interest.
My concern for others mirrors my growing self-respect.
February 18 Anxiety is the essential condition of intellectual and artistic creation.
Too much stress can wear down our resistance to assaults on self-esteem as well as to physical disease. At one time or another, we’ve all had trouble holding on simply because we were too tired to fight back. We gave in to fatigue. But we mustn’t draw the conclusion that stress is always as harmful as fatigue is.
Fatigue is a matter of energy management-making sure we get enough recreation and sleep. Because exhaustion saps any program of growth, it’s absolutely necessary that we rearrange our lives to make room for adequate rest. But productive stress is also necessary if we’re going to experience success. Any “up and doing” creates anxiety, and anxiety creates the stress. Whenever we stretch to be more tomorrow than we were yesterday there is going to be stress-so we’d better rest up for it!
If we’re translating the stress in our lives into positive experiences, we’re elevating our self-esteem. Many of the behaviors that become the building blocks of self-esteem are wretchedly uncomfortable at first. Even thinking about them may make us break out in a cold sweat. Of course, there will be stress-but it’s the kind of stress that creates.
If self-esteem were bread, stress would be the yeast in the recipe.
February 19 Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Nature’s inexorable imperative.
Some of us have pretty firm, even rigid, ideas about the way things “ought” to be. We want people and places to stay the same as they always were. Sometimes our unhappiness with change is simply nostalgia; part of our youth disappears when the corner drugstore gives way to a parking lot. But sometimes our resistance to change is more serious-as if the battles we’ve already fought took such a toll that all we can think of is digging in right where we are.
Yet all growth requires change and all change is a matter of adjustment. Perhaps we need to move forward or backward, lighten up or tighten up, let go of something old and reach out for something new. Perhaps we need to reconsider a negative attitude or be willing to do something we’ve never done before.
The circumstances and characteristics that bolstered our youthful self-esteem are sure to change as the years go by. As reality changes, so must our perspective change if we are to stay fully alive for all of our days. Adaptation is not only necessary-it’s natural.
The survival of my self-esteem requires adaptation.
February 20 You only become real when…your fur has been rubbed off.
Self-esteem is the reward for peeling away our fakery, looking squarely at our character defects, and building on our strengths. Whether we’re trying to recover from disaster or simply trying to get more out of life, all of us are engaged in the process of becoming real.
The author of The Velveteen Rabbit makes the point that we become real when we are loved a great deal. And love always means being used. Not put on a shelf, not safely out of harm’s way. Love is not, and never has been, safe.
We get real when we become involved and thus get our “our fur rubbed off.” Maybe we throw ourselves into a cause that seems doomed but is too important to ignore. Maybe we spend time with a troubled child who is too distressed right now to respect us, let alone thank us. Any conflict or discomfort we take on for the sake of some greater good is worth it because it’s real. Never do we feel so alive as when we’re trading off a little fur for a lot of love.
What’s real in life is gloves-off, go-for-broke involvement.
February 21 He that can’t endure the bad will not live to see the good.
Many once-jolly travelers on the road to recovering self-esteem have turned into wary travelers indeed. Maybe we’ve started out on this journey many times before and run into so many problems we had to turn back. Perhaps we used unreliable maps or timetables, or our traveling companions proved untrustworthy. So now we’re guarded: we’re afraid to expect too much.
Yet the pursuit of any treasure requires risk. Little progress will be made if our first concern is to avoid disappointments. In spite of our discouraging past experiences, we need to try again. Perhaps we need to get going again with our affirmations, even if they didn’t prove magical last time. Maybe a new group would help or even a different, more-realistic attitude on our own part.
Might we be disappointed again?? Yes indeed. The affirmations may stick in our throats, some meetings may turn out to be boring, the friends we choose may be far more flawed than we expected. But partial as they are, all of these efforts combine to get us there. Standing on guard won’t do it.
Perseverance is my passage to improved self-esteem.
February 22 Procrastination is the thief of time.
There are hundreds of pages in this book concerning self-esteem. Some encourage thinking, others acting, others understanding. Yet all that thinking, questioning, and understanding will be useless to some people; useless because they’re facing a major decision that’s blocking their progress. Until they’re willing to take action, all the insight in the world isn’t going to help.
Any work on self-esteem while we’re acting out an addiction or an affair or staying involved in some on-going dishonesty like a dead relationship will bear little fruit.
Preparing to make drastic decisions can, of course, take time. And any effort made to get to the frame of mind where the decision can be made is valid. But let there be no confusion as to why we don’t feel better about ourselves. The problem is us and our unwillingness to act.
Postponing my decisions often postpones my relief.
February 23 Many a man has fallen in love with a girl in light so dim he would not have chosen a suit by it.
Sexual chemistry is a curious thing indeed. Who can explain the sudden, overwhelming attraction of one to another-perhaps a very unlikely other? Burned as we may have been, once the sparks start to fly we climb right back on that emotional roller coaster. And once on that wild ride, we’re hell bent to take every dip and curve.
Yet emotional thrill rides are rarely worth the price of the ticket. As high as the highs may be, the lows come all too hard and soon. By sacrificing cool rationality to hot emotion, we trade off too much self-respect. By heedlessly becoming involved in relationships that are doomed from the start, we demean ourselves. In effect, we play with our self-esteem when we knowingly play with unwise relationships.
The fact is that we can’t afford it. It is one thing to feel attraction, but quite another to follow it. While the temptation may be great, let us see whether any new relationship can stand before the tribunal of reason before we skip off to the roller coaster again. Reason should be the companion, not the enemy, of emotion.
Foolish love affairs can cost more than the time wasted on them.
February 24 Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.
Many of our employers promote concepts like “team spirit” and “company loyalty.” In a world increasingly ruled by competitive specialization, cooperative effort is a must, of course. If we want to keep our jobs we also want our companies to stay in business, to make a profit. We give in order to get; we’re willing to do what’s necessary and good.
But there’s a dark side to being defined as a “team member.” We can abandon common sense and lose creative self-reliance if we let ourselves be completely swallowed up by any team or company. Sharon’s company, for example, thinks in terms of “units,” not people. Like many others, this company feels free, and is free, to pull up stakes and move entire operations from one end of the country to another. The disruption of human lives is never considered. Rumors of such a move sent Sharon to a counselor who told her to take matters into her own hands by making an A-B-C list of job opportunities she could pursue if the pullout actually happened. It all sounded good until the end of the session when Sharon said, “Yes, but when are they going to tell us what our A-B-C choices are? When are they going to come and tell us what to do?
They aren’t. The choices are ours, and the responsibility is as well.
Passive passengers often get driven where they don’t want to go.
February 25 Bravery is being the only one who knows you are afraid.
Heroes, we think, are basically better people than we are. Surely they have great self-esteem. That’s why they can do such extraordinary things. They don’t seem to feel fear. That’s why they can charge a machine-gun nest or rescue someone from a fire or fearlessly respond to any life-threatening emergency. But, in fact, our assumptions about heroes may not be true at all. These people may have been terribly afraid, but they went forward anyway. Perhaps that is the essence of heroism-to go forward anyway, afraid or not.
What seems routine to others may be terribly frightening to us. For some it may be a genuine act of heroism to apply for a job if there is a great fear of rejection. It may take great courage to speak up to a browbeater after a long life of passivity. To express our honest feelings may make us break out in a cold sweat.
Difficult though they are, these nonnewsworthy acts may be just what it takes to crack the self-esteem barrier. The point is not whether we are afraid, but whether we do what needs to be done. That’s the hero’s way.
Any time I defy fear, I perform an act of heroism.
February 26 Unresolved anger is often the hidden source of low self-esteem.
What we don’t see, we can’t understand. What we don’t understand, we can’t influence. And when that blind spot relates to the source of our self-esteem, the results can be devastating.
Hurt that has been denied, mislabeled, or unrecognized still exists, no matter how long ago we were wounded. In fact, such hurt-that is the hard core of all anger-is all the more potent for not being recognized or for being called something else. The trouble with burying something alive is that it will devour us from the inside. Buried does not necessarily mean dead.
At the core of much low self-esteem is just such a hard knot of anger. Anger over the way we were treated as children, rights that were denied, kindnesses that should have been there for us but were not. Love, encouragement, support, perhaps even the basic safety that everyone has a right to-none of these were to be had. Buried, that collection of hurts turned into anger and seeped out sideways. Sometimes the seeping turns into a flood. Often it becomes simply a prevailing state of being-we are just always angry, always hostile, always operating with a short fuse. That doesn’t make us very attractive people. To say the least, we’re not fun to be with. And so the anger over our long-ago hurt generates loneliness and rejection even today. Lest our tomorrows be affected as well, let us own up to our buried anger.
Hidden anger can kill me. I must recognize it and address it.
February 27 Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne’er was, nor is, nor shall be.
Perfectionism is complex and subtle. Out loud, few of us would say, “Perfection is my only acceptable standard,” But in the privacy of our own minds, many of us talk out of the other side of our mouths: “I must always give 110 percent.” “I must never fail a friend.” “For winners, there’s really only first place and no place.”
Setting a high standard and holding yourself to it is certainly admirable behavior. Bo one who shoots too low accomplishes very much. But there is a big difference between striving for a high standard and expecting yourself to achieve it every time out. No one can “always” put out a 110 percent effort; there are days when we only have 80 percent to give. No one “never” drops the ball or bungles an opportunity; even world-class performers have their off days. And first place is only as sweet as it is because it’s not a permanent position-not for anyone. In life, there is no such thing as a perfect score.
Impossible demands on self make self-esteem impossible, too. If our approval is only won by superhuman feats, we won’t have much to cheer about. How much healthier and happier we will be when we eliminate words like always and never from our inner code of conduct. We need to hear more applause.
My opinion of myself must not rest on words like always and never.
February 28 Pride is the mask of one’s own faults.
Fear has many disguises. Sometimes it puts on sexy clothes and talks in the voice of list. Sometimes it wears the mask of anger or greed or envy. And sometimes fear pretends to be pride. “I’m smart and strong,” we say to ourselves. “I don’t need help. Whatever I have to do, I can do alone.” These are the kinds of things we say when we refuse to join a group or put off asking someone to be our sponsor or even confide in a friend.
But is it pride or fear talking? Pride takes the illogical stand that in spite of the pain we’ve lived with for so long we really are better than others. Fear, on the other hand, whisperingly suggests that others may be better than we are, so we’d be safer to hold back so they’ll never know. Reaching out for any kind of help would make us vulnerable.
But no one grows as well without support. Strength and pride aside, we need other people’s input, insights, and encouragement. We need people we can trust to hold us accountable. We need to hear about their struggles and successes. When we insist on going it alone, it’s usually not because we’re more independent and self-sufficient than other people. It’s because we’re afraid.
I need a community of peers for support.
