BELIEVING IN ME
June 1 Wherever you go, there you are. Earnie Larsen Oh, to just escape and get away from it all! Negative relationships, problems at work, unresolved issues at home, bantering self-talk, unmet challenges. And these are just a few of the demanding situations we live with day in and day out. No wonder we want to run away!
But before we change our name and start over again someplace else, we’d better think about the common denominator in all our problems. At least in part, most of those thorny situations have a lot more to do with us than they do with “them.” Our unfair boss doesn’t know our irritating neighbor, and neither of them knows our nagging mother-in-law. The only common element in all those relational problems seems to be us.
Resolving the issues that face us almost always means changing something in ourselves. Much of the hurt that stems from all of them is self-inflicted, whether actively or passively. Even if we ran from those situations, we would likely re-create them in a new setting. When even a part of the problem is us, the solution is ours as well. We can’t run far enough to escape ourselves.
Who will I see in the mirror once I get “there”?
June 2 We find great things are made of little things and little things go lessening till at last comes God behind them. Robert Browning In this age of overhyped extravaganzas, we tend to undervalue anything small. “If it isn’t spectacular,” the popular culture tells us, “it must be insignificant.” But real life is quite a different proposition from the slick limitations of life we see all around us. Don’t be fooled.
Small gains count. When we accept that, we give our self-image a dignity and a value it didn’t have before. Rather than see ourselves as falling short of some theatrical ideal, we can see ourselves as steady climbers making real progress on a steep hill that was not created in Hollywood. Being real, most of our personal dramas are not big productions. They don’t draw a crowd or put our pictures in the papers. But that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve notice.
We don’t have to lose seventy-five pounds to give ourselves a hand; seven pounds is a worthy accomplishment. We don’t have to run a marathon, let alone win it. If we got off the couch and walked around the block three evenings in a row, we’re on our way to fitness. If we’ve made any progress in the right direction, something significant has happened and credit is due.
Public acclaim isn’t necessary for private achievement
June 3 No one has time; we have to make time. James Rhoen If self-esteem can be considered a work of art, then, like all great works of art, the time it takes to create it is well worth it. The problem with many of us is that time is the last thing we seem to have to contribute to any enterprise.
Time, however, is far more a question of priorities than of amounts. If someone has “run out of time” and then finds that her child has been hurt-or that she has won a large cash prize if only she can get to a phone in time to call in and collect-all of a sudden time is “found.” Time can always be found if the desire is great enough.
So it is with finding the time to do the things that add to our self-esteem. If the wish is strong enough, the time will appear. Time to take a daily walk, or to do daily reading; time to call a friend or write in a journal; time to attend a weekly meeting or do some important volunteer work.
Having the time may well not be the issue. Making the time to build my self-esteem may be.
June 4 Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment. Friedrich Nietzche Of all the emotions, unleashed anger and resentment shout the loudest for attention. When either is bellowing, any other thought or behavior quickly runs for cover. That’s why it’s important to know what these booming voices are saying. The answer is crucial in our pursuit of positive self-esteem.
Like a raging fever, raging anger is a messenger telling us that something is wrong. The tendency, of course, is to strike out or blow off steam in some other way. To do anything that will provide relief right now. But anger is really a red flag of warning that’s meant to make us turn around before we go too far in some dangerous direction. Anger is a needed service, as is its simmering sidekick, resentment.
When we learn to get the message, we can make short work of raging and stewing and turn our energies on the unfinished business that is causing all that misery. Serenity may well depend on using these emotions as stepping-stones rather than roadblocks.
Uninvestigated anger and resentment halt my forward progress.
June 5 Hope is a risk that we must run. George Bernanos “Where there’s life there’s hope” is certainly true, but the reverse is an even more valuable truth: “Where there’s hope, there’s life.”
Despair can seem the only realistic response to problems that are too deeply rooted or long-standing. When all our efforts have been mocked, all of our prayers seemingly unanswered, we may feel like fools to keep on clinging to the tattered little shred of hope we still have in our hearts. But as long as our hope is alive, so are we.
An attitude of hopelessness is more of a problem than any problem. Is the steadfast parent who hopes for an addicted child’s recovery better or worse off than the parent who has given up? Is the indomitable cancer patient who hopes for a medical breakthrough stronger or weaker for refusing to give in? Hope doesn’t guarantee that the child will recover or the cancer will be overcome, but it does guarantee that we will be active agents of positive change for ourselves and our loved ones. Who is to say that might not tip the balance?
Hope creates spiritual energy.
June 6 To smell the roses is not enough. They must be tended, also. Anonymous Remember Aesop’s fable about the ant and the grasshopper? Unlike the busy ant, all the grasshopper did was smell the roses and enjoy life. When the winter came, he was out of luck. He would have starved if the ants hadn’t been willing to share the food they had stored up. Such are the risks by those who consume without contributing.
In building self-esteem, we often have to learn to appreciate all the good things that are around us. But we are as shortsighted as the grasshopper if we take those things too much for granted. Many of the beautiful things around us are not our due-they were put there and are being maintained by others.
Self-respect requires that we make a contribution. It’s a wonderful thing to become aware of the many graces and benefits we receive in our daily lives. But it’s even more wonderful-and much healthier-to be-come aware of relationship between give and take. When we tend some roses so that others may smell them, we give back some of the blessings we have received.
A sense of purpose makes self-esteem bloom.
June 7 The best is yet to be. Robert Browning “The best is yet to be” is a poetic sentiment. The belief that the best is yet to be is a way of life that can lead us to a constantly expanding awareness and appreciation of ourselves and others.
Low self-esteem, of course, pooh-poohs the possibility that anything can get better, let alone that some marvelous adventure may be just around the corner. Yet that belief is exactly the right prescription for negativity, cynicism, and all the other ailments that prevent our enjoyment of life.
Once we accept the dignity and the responsibility of choosing, how could we doubt that the best is still to come? If today’s choice is good, and we have the power to choose the content of our tomorrows, there are sure to be better days ahead. Of course, they won’t all be up days, but as long as we can choose the positive over the negative, the smile over the frown, we can be absolutely confident that we will not have dreamed and hoped and labored in vain. Goodness creates goodness multiplied, one day at a time, as far as we can see into the future and beyond.
Hope in the future creates a sense of joyful expectancy.
June 8 Be thine own, palace, or the world’s thy jail. John Donne By whose standards are we doing well or not so well? Every time we check ourselves out, we’re positioning ourselves against one yardstick or another. Obviously, we need to be very choosy in our selection of yardsticks. It’s a mistake to automatically accept any outside evaluation as a gospel truth. We need to think for ourselves if we want to take charge of our self-esteem.
The tendency to people please is very powerful. It not only gets us approval but it lets us off the hook. But our own approval is even more important. When we find ourselves second-guessing other people’s wishes, we need to think their counsel through before we swallow it whole. Advice from others can be helpful, but only as a guide. Only as input to inform our own decision making.
There’s dignity in running our own lives according to our own standards. Only the decisions that we make will truly satisfy us. Satisfying others may be socially convenient, but it won’t give us the self-respect we’re striving for.
Growing self-confidence allows me to be my own decision maker.
June 9 Be yourself. “The Desiderata” Great teachers have always counseled us to be ourselves. From the admonishment “Know thyself,” inscribed over the ancient temple door at Delphi, to the above-quoted advice from “The Desiderata,” wise people seem to have long known there is an amazing amount of power in simply being who we are. Self-esteem, of course, is the artwork that rests on the pedestal of self-knowledge.
It isn’t possible to become comfortable and positive toward ourselves if we won’t be ourselves. That can only happen if we accept who we are without putting on airs, wearing masks, or trying to be someone other than ourselves.
Even without makeup or props, we are wonderful people who have every right to feel good about ourselves. To constantly run in the rat race of competition, comparison, and jealousies is to exhaust ourselves for nothing. Other people are not our enemies or opponents or judges. We can be our own true selves without feeling pressured to change colors like a chameleon in a thousand different situations.
Self-knowledge sets me free from the judgment of others.
June 10 What is our praise or pride but to imagine excellence, and try to make it? Richard Wilbur Developing healthy self-esteem means growing ever more comfortable with who we are in and of ourselves-not how we stack up in comparison with others. The ancient Greeks’ concept of excellence, which they called arête, had nothing to do with superiority over others, as it does in our culture. To the Greeks, excellence was achieved when people became all they could be. Accomplishing that meant finding as many balances in life as possible. Their ideal, unlike ours, was “moderation in all things.”
Constantly comparing and competing can be ruinous, especially as far as self-esteem goes. There will always be greater and lesser persons than ourselves. An comparisons often lead to either arrogance or bitterness. Neither unholy glee in winning nor crushing disappointment in losing promotes a realistic, balanced self-concept.
What does it matter how much others do or have? If we are striving for excellence, we are winning our own race. Our only opponents are our own deficiencies.
To achieve excellence in my life is to achieve my own potential.
June 11 To see things as they are, the eyes must be open; to see things as other than they are, they must be open even wider. To see things as better than they are, they must be open to the full. Antonio Machado y Ruiz Our perceptions are like the knotholes in a fence through which we peek at life. Although the view we get is limited, what we see is the truth as much as we are able to see it. Low self-esteem is always built around a narrow, limited perception that we have mistaken for the big picture. In fact most of what we regard as real is nothing more than our perception of reality. Thus our perceptions create our reality.
Not surprisingly, our negative perceptions were almost always formed when we were too young to understand what we saw on the other side of the knothole. In our innocence and inexperience, we thought we saw the big picture, the only picture. That’s why self-esteem issues are so often Adult Child issues. Both are matters of early imprinting. That imprinting may very well be interpreting reality for us today.
What are the facts of life as we see them? If we believe that nothing good will ever happen to us, or that we are responsible for anything bad that happens to others, we need to go back to the fence and take another look. The world is wider now than it seemed to us when we were children.
Different perceptions create different options.
June 12 Inward ho! Christopher Morley Everyday life seems like dull stuff indeed compared to the dramatic exploits of fantasy. Oh, if we only had been born in a more exciting time and place! We could have been explorers or inventors or mountain climbers or astronauts. Too bad we didn’t have the opportunity to take on a heroic challenge-something we could really sink our teeth into. How wonderful it would have been. If only we’d had the chance.
But the chance for adventure is always there, knocking at the door. Talk about challenge! If we want mountains to climb and new territories to explore, we need look no further than our own hearts and minds. Want to scale a treacherous peak? Choose your weakest social skill and try inching your way up to a respectable level of competence. Want to chart a wilderness? Work on a Fourth Step inventory or a family of origin investigation.
Our time and place is now and here-as is our opportunity to do all the pioneering we’ve ever dreamed of. As in all other times and places, courage and imagination are all that’s needed to go where no one has ever gone before!
Self-discovery is a greater adventure than any other; inward ho!
June 13 Often the difference between a successful marriage and a mediocre one consists of leaving about three or four things a day unsaid. Harlan Miller An unstoked fire doesn’t take long to flicker and fizzle. You don’t need a bucket of water to douse the flames, just the lack of attention will do. Relationships are like that too. If they go too long ignored, they start to die.
It’s terribly difficult to maintain positive self-esteem in the midst of a failing relationship. Because of what we don’t do, our relationships, like all living things, grow stronger or weaker every day. How easy it is, in our superbusy world, simply not to notice that a beloved relationship is faltering. How easy it would also have been to add some wood before the flame died completely.
It’s common sense as well as positive spirituality to make sure that we make good connections with our loved one on a daily basis. There is no substitute for paying attention to our partners, saying words that heal and encourage. And there is certainly no substitute for touch-a pat on the shoulder, a squeeze of the hand, a passing hug. What priority could be greater? When the “us” is lost, the world is cold indeed.
Self-esteem slips when my priorities slip.
June 14 We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. The Talmud The same blossoming cherry tree looks like profit to the grower, a painting to the artist, a bookcase to the woodworker, and a feast to the birds. What we see is often different than the objective reality in front of our faces. Depending on our viewpoint, any event or circumstance may be wonderful ,or awful opportune, or disappointing. Usually we see what we expect to see.
Building self-esteem means having our eyes checked. We need to know how much of us is creeping into the picture we see outside of us. We need to be aware that past experience can distort the present and that motives cause us to squint. To clearly envision a better world and a better us, we may have to throw out our old glasses.
Is a joke just a joke or is it a veiled insulted? Are our children burdens or blessings? Does the future look rosy or gray? Our answers to questions like these reflect interior, not exterior, realities. The good news is that these are the only realities that we’re in charge of. If we choose to, we can get out of our own light and the sun shine on a golden road we’ve never seen before.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
June 15 When I work, I work. But when I sit, I sit loose. Appalachian Saying In this fast-paced world, so full of stress, learning how to relax is even more important than learning how to get ahead. It may be, as a matter of fact, that we will have better careers if we take better care of our “equipment.” Our bodies and minds are wonderful of machines, of course, but all machines have a breaking point. The sad fact is that many us simply don’t know when or how to turn off our motors, We haven’t let down in so long we seem to have lost the ability.
Here are a few tips for lightening up a grinding workday:
Sit loose; hum a tune; call a friend for a quick hello.
Unclench your jaw; let it go limp.
Walk up and down stairs a couple of times a day.
Stretch, touch your toes; raise your arms up over your head.
Take deep breaths.
Learning a few relaxation techniques to use when we’re under pressure can be a lifesaver. Not only do such physical and mental exercises relieve stiff necks and headaches, they also help us bring better energy back to the job.
Taking a few stress breaks every day helps me keep my perspective.
June 16 Anger is not evil. It is simply power waiting to be directed. S. Dale Smith How each of us handles anger is a matter of personal style. Some of us slam doors or throw things. Some of us mutter insults through clenched teeth or bellow in rage. Others go to bed with sick headaches, and still others simply deny that they are ever angry.
Incapacity for anger is just as unhealthy and dysfunctional as smashing dishes or screaming uncontrollably. Wild “acting out” is one kind of problem, but repressive “acting in” is a problem, too. Anger is a normal emotional response to perceived injustice. To be out of touch with our own anger against life’s unfairnesses is to be out of touch with a major chunk of reality. It isn’t normal never to feel outrage in this often outrageous world.
Better far to admit our anger and convert it into positive action. We are stronger, not weaker, when we channel legiticate anger and use it as a power source to solve the problems we’re angry about. Confronting unfairness builds self-esteem because it makes us feel good about ourselves. Maybe directed anger is just the generator we’ve been looking for.
Anger isn’t too hot to handle if I direct its energy.
June 17 The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. William James It’s not unusual to panic when we recognize some of the mistakes we have made and the years of practice we have put into unwittingly handicapping our own self-esteem. But panic is the last thing we need when we sincerely want to turn our lives around.
Building self-esteem means unearthing the truth and getting to know our own history and the forces that have made us who we are. In the process of self-discovery, we inevitably come face to face with those mistakes and behavior patterns that cause our unhappiness. Sometimes these new insights make us feel even worse about ourselves than we did before. “How could I have been so stupid?” we may groan. “I must be the dumbest person on the planet. My life is waste. It is too late.”
But it’s never too late and almost nothing is fatal. What was learned can be unlearned. Old habits can be overturned and replaced by new, positive habits. The new way-that and the willingness to reach out to other caring, growing people. With such new resources, we are in a position to write our own glorious history from here on out.
I can fly into the future if I leave the past behind.
June 18 A mob has many heads, but no brain. Shankara Recent research has led brain specialists to understand that the human mind works less like a computer than a town meeting. Apparently there are many inputs offering different responses to the issues that confront us. And the brain cells that “speak” the loudest get heard and acted on.
Who calls the shots for us when self-esteem issues demand settlement? If one input says, “Face it; deal with it,” and another input says “Hide till it blos over,” which command drowns out the other? Does panic speak louder than patience? Is “Attack” a roar and “Negotiate! Just a whisper?
Sorting out contradictory messages is a primary task of those who would foster their self-esteem. If we give all our “voices” equal time-or repeatedly back off from the bully in the crowd-our lives are subject to mob rule. But if we listen, think, and practice filtering out the negative messages, the noise of the rabble will die down. If we persist in our efforts, the calm voice of reason will get stronger and stronger. The mob that heckled us toward diminished life will be quited by reason’s gavel. Then decisions can be made as they are supposed to be made-at an orderly town council meeting where the best tactic is chosen from many.
Nature gives me inner contradictions; character gives me choice.
June 19 It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem. G. K. Chesterton Every man Mary dates turns out to be a cheat and a liar. Jack has never had a boss who was reasonable or fair. Kim gets a stomachache every time she goes on vacation. Paul’s relatives always get their hands on every penny he’s got. What’s going on here? Are these the unluckiest people in the world, or what?
The dooming “what” in many of our lives isn’t fate or coincidence or bad luck. It’s the role we play in a drama we keep writing as we go along. For some reason-and there is a reson if we could dig deep enough to find it-we cast ourselves as losers. Then scene after scene, act after act, we get victimized by the bad-guy characters.
Because the problem is us, the solution, obviously, is to rewrite the script. Soap operas kill off the characters that get tiresome and predictable’ why can’t we? Victimhood isn’t compatible with growth. If we want a happier ending, we’re going to have to stop walking onto the same old sets and repeating the same old lines. We deserve a chance at a new role.
Once recognized, self-defeating patterns can be crossed out and rewritten.
June 20 Buffaloes are held by cords, man by his words. Malay Proverb We can’t work with what we haven’t got. That’s why we can’t think of ourselves except in the terms we use to think about anyone else. To put it another way, the words we use for ourselves and others show how we think of ourselves and others.
We might claim that we rarely use any words to talk about ourselves, meaning that most of us reveal very little that’s personal to others. But all of us talk about ourselves to ourselves! There is a constant flow of self-talk, an inner dialogue, going on within. People with low self-esteem have learned to live with words like useless, stupid, and ugly. These are the kind of words we use to describe how we succeed or fail, how we look, how we react to others, and what they must think of us. And we tend to give others the same kind of going over we give ourselves.
Consider this: What power we have when we consciously decide to use only positive, supportive words, first with ourselves and then with others. What wonders can happen if we start using a whole new vocabulary!
It’s interesting and instructive to stop and listen to myself talking to myself.
June 21 He is a man whom it is impossible to please because he is never pleased with himself .Goethe How much of our self-esteem depends on what other people think? Too much. How often do we withhold self-approval until approval from other sources tells us it’s okay? Too often. Whether we’re coming out of modesty or fear, we make a mistake when we assume that outside evaluations are more accurate than any inner reading we may have. Who knows us better than ourselves?
Other people’s indifferent or negative reactions to us may have nothing to do with us and everything to do with them. Maybe the person we are trying to please can’t be pleased. Perhaps there is no possibility that we, or anyone else, will ever get positive feedback from that negative source. Some people are so full of fear, resentment, and hurt, that their major effect on life is to make everyone as miserable as they are. Obviously, when we look to such people for validation, we look in vain. As we learn to be more honest with ourselves, we can more comfortably trust our own judgment.
I wouldn’t give a bank robber my savings to hold. Why should I let negative people take charge of my self-esteem?
June 22 In the mind and nature of a man a secret is an ugly thing, like a hidden physical defect. Isak Dinesen A friend who confides a secret has every right to expect us to keep that information to ourselves. If we claim to be mature, trustworthy people, we must behave that way. Perhaps we, too, have the need of a trusted listener.
What lives in the dark, grows in the dark. Do we have deep, shame-inducing secrets that we keep locked away, terrified to tell anyone? Refusing to reveal such secrets can produce personal monsters-real fire-breathing, ferocious monsters that will intimidate us and control our lives if we don’t bring them out in the light.
Unshared secrets tend to grow. In the darkness, the mouse becomes the lion; in the light of revelation, however, the lion becomes the harmless mouse. Even the most dreadful secrets lose their power to frighten us when we say their names out loud. And what we share with others is not what drives them away, but what binds us to them, deepening the trusted friendship. If we have been imprisoning our self-esteem behind some long held, festering secret, we can turn on the sunshine by simply telling someone about it.
Shared troubles are cut in half.
June 23 Practice makes imperfect. Mariette Hartley The unusual twist on the saying we’re accustomed to may seem off at first. But it depends on what we’re practicing. What if we’re spending time in the pursuit of some attitude or habit that diminishes the quality of our lives?
Subconsciously we may regularly practice avoiding conflict at all costs, stalling on decisions, always putting work before play, or play before work. If we practice hard enough, there is no limit to just how imperfect we may become! Eventually, we could be world-class perfectionists, controllers, manipulators, or workaholics.
All self-esteem is rooted in our attitudes, habits, and perceptions. Those that are already healthy translate into positive self-esteem. Those that are negative are the basis of our negative self-esteem. There’s no question about the power of practice. What we need to check out is what it is that we are practicing.
Practicing some things can make me worse.
June 24 Most of what we want to be, we already are. Kevin K. How easy it is to become anxious and upset over what we are not and who we are not. As if we were starting out from scratch to create worthy selves! What a disastrous impact this mistaken idea has on our self-esteem.
Just as the oak is in the acorn, we already are most of what we want to be. At least in germ, if not in full flower. The potential for development is, and has always been, with us. The task is not to become something totally different, but to develop what we already have, what is already there.
Are we not already capable of loving and being loved? Are we not, at the present time, able to see beauty and celebrate it? To at least some extent, are we not already actively involved in getting better and growing? Believing that we’ll get there is a matter of patience and persistence.
An acorn isn’t worthless because it’s not yet an oak. Neither am I worthless because I’m not yet what I’m going to be.
June 25 No can be a love word. Ron Palmer Much is said in self-esteem literature about the triumph of saying yes. Yes to life! to risk! to intimacy! To bold new adventures! Amen. But there is no universal, absolute goodness to either of the words yes or no .Because much of life is a balancing act, there are times when both words are conducive to positive self-worth, and other times when both are lethal.
No is a word of love and health when we consider lose-lose situations or risks that are not risks at all but traps. For many of us, learning tosay “no” as a complete sentence is a great sign of growth. When we can turn down a bad idea or a dangerous invitation without justification or explanation, we are truly on our way to freedom.
Just as often as it is brave and good and hopeful to say yes it is appropriate and beneficial to say no.
Learning to say no will break my bonds of passivity.
June 26 It is often possible to get greater enjoyment from what we are already doing, rather than try to find something else. L. Don Siebet It is true enough that self-esteem comes from greater fulfillment, which translates to a happy life. In the pursuit of that happiness, many people do just that-passionately go after something, anything, that’s
aren’t necessarily greener.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with keeping our eyes open for new things we might do that are exciting, fun, or just plain different. But there is also something to be said about possessing or developing the wisdom to take more pleasure in what we are already doing. Perhaps our dissatisfaction is really more with ourselves than with our jobs, our friends, or our current activities.
If we enjoy a hobby, is that not marvelous in itself? If we find that looking at new houses or cars gives us a lift, it may be that we don’t need to find something else that is “really” fun. Maybe we need to organize more activities with our friends rather than find new friends. Can that not be done right where we are? Maybe the job we already have would be more interesting if we threw more energy into it. Need we be in some other, more glamorous place than where we are? Greater self-esteem always generates greater happiness. Maybe we can have it right where we are now, and from what we’re already doing.
Sometimes it’s only my attitudes that need changing.
June 27 The guts carry the feet, not the feet the guts. Miguel de Cervantes Mitch’s boy is arrested for dealing drugs. Diane finds another lump in her breast. Lupe’s husband is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Art is fired three years before he’s eligible for retirement. Every day in every city and town, thousands of people are confronted with paralyzing personal disasters. How do people survive, let alone cope with, such things?
Everyday gripes and irritations are put in their place very quickly when catastrophe grabs us by the throat. Suddenly there is no time or energy to fuss about going bald or growing old. The urgency of the situation demands that we focus every strength we have, every resource, on just moving one step at a time. Thus is character forged on the white-hot anvil of necessity.
It takes raw courage to stand fast when every fiber of our being wants to hide under the covers, split, or retaliate in some self-destructive way. But like any business, tragic business is taken care of by walking through it, one foot ahead of the other, one day at a time. Plain old guts-the kind we didn’t think we had in us-is what carries us through the cruelest challenges.
One step at a time is the way to bear unbearable sorrows.
June 28 Character consists of what you do on the third or fourth tries. James Michener Most of us want to play the piano, not learn the piano; speak a foreign language, not study it; enjoy success, not earn it. We want our dreams to come true quickly and without too much effort. We don’t want to accept the becoming that comes before being.
But character is built, not wished into being. Character is a prerequisite of self-esteem, the wind in the sails of success. And in spite of our daydreams, character is always earned the hard way-by getting up after failure and trying again. And again. And again.
So what if we promised ourselves to quit smoking by now? We can set ourselves a new deadline and try again. Have we failed a second time to make a dreaded phone call? Try a third. Has the ladder to success slipped out from under us again? Maybe it will take another three or four tries. Once we arrive, no one cares how long it took for us to get there.
Character building is a lifelong enterprise.
June 29 How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares if there seemed any danger of their coming true! Logan Pearsall Smith Wishful thinking can actually prevent our dreams from coming true. When we fantasize about perfect life circumstances, we’re not out there on the playing field, where life is lived. And it’s only in the rough-and-tumble where skill can be gained, points scored, and the game won.
Self-esteem is built on the flesh-and-blood selves we are in the real world-not in our daydreams. Rather than wishing to be different kinds of people doing different kinds of work in different kinds of places, we can change our daydreams. When it comes right down to it, we all have the same wish-for happiness, freedom, peace of mind. The difference is in our imaginings of what it would take to make that dream come true.
Singing Madame Butterfly or pitching for the Yankees would be fun, all right, but it wouldn’t make us more trustworthy, kind, or courageous. It wouldn’t erase the sad events of the past; nothing can. Even if our glamorous dreams came true, we’d still be human beings with problems, blind spots, and limitations. As far as we know, the lives we have now are the only lives we’re going to get. Let’s live our days, not dream them away.
The only “perfect” life for me is the one God gave me.
June 30 From the cowardice that dares not face new truths, From the laziness that is content with half-truths, From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truths, Good Lord, deliver me. Kenyan Prayer Successful life management must be based on reality. Because, in turn, reality must be based on truth, we need to be very watchful for attitudes that would blind us to the truth.
In the quest for self-esteem, sometimes new truths must be faced:
I must work to become aware of my underlying attitudes.
June 1 Wherever you go, there you are. Earnie Larsen Oh, to just escape and get away from it all! Negative relationships, problems at work, unresolved issues at home, bantering self-talk, unmet challenges. And these are just a few of the demanding situations we live with day in and day out. No wonder we want to run away!
But before we change our name and start over again someplace else, we’d better think about the common denominator in all our problems. At least in part, most of those thorny situations have a lot more to do with us than they do with “them.” Our unfair boss doesn’t know our irritating neighbor, and neither of them knows our nagging mother-in-law. The only common element in all those relational problems seems to be us.
Resolving the issues that face us almost always means changing something in ourselves. Much of the hurt that stems from all of them is self-inflicted, whether actively or passively. Even if we ran from those situations, we would likely re-create them in a new setting. When even a part of the problem is us, the solution is ours as well. We can’t run far enough to escape ourselves.
Who will I see in the mirror once I get “there”?
June 2 We find great things are made of little things and little things go lessening till at last comes God behind them. Robert Browning In this age of overhyped extravaganzas, we tend to undervalue anything small. “If it isn’t spectacular,” the popular culture tells us, “it must be insignificant.” But real life is quite a different proposition from the slick limitations of life we see all around us. Don’t be fooled.
Small gains count. When we accept that, we give our self-image a dignity and a value it didn’t have before. Rather than see ourselves as falling short of some theatrical ideal, we can see ourselves as steady climbers making real progress on a steep hill that was not created in Hollywood. Being real, most of our personal dramas are not big productions. They don’t draw a crowd or put our pictures in the papers. But that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve notice.
We don’t have to lose seventy-five pounds to give ourselves a hand; seven pounds is a worthy accomplishment. We don’t have to run a marathon, let alone win it. If we got off the couch and walked around the block three evenings in a row, we’re on our way to fitness. If we’ve made any progress in the right direction, something significant has happened and credit is due.
Public acclaim isn’t necessary for private achievement
June 3 No one has time; we have to make time. James Rhoen If self-esteem can be considered a work of art, then, like all great works of art, the time it takes to create it is well worth it. The problem with many of us is that time is the last thing we seem to have to contribute to any enterprise.
Time, however, is far more a question of priorities than of amounts. If someone has “run out of time” and then finds that her child has been hurt-or that she has won a large cash prize if only she can get to a phone in time to call in and collect-all of a sudden time is “found.” Time can always be found if the desire is great enough.
So it is with finding the time to do the things that add to our self-esteem. If the wish is strong enough, the time will appear. Time to take a daily walk, or to do daily reading; time to call a friend or write in a journal; time to attend a weekly meeting or do some important volunteer work.
Having the time may well not be the issue. Making the time to build my self-esteem may be.
June 4 Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment. Friedrich Nietzche Of all the emotions, unleashed anger and resentment shout the loudest for attention. When either is bellowing, any other thought or behavior quickly runs for cover. That’s why it’s important to know what these booming voices are saying. The answer is crucial in our pursuit of positive self-esteem.
Like a raging fever, raging anger is a messenger telling us that something is wrong. The tendency, of course, is to strike out or blow off steam in some other way. To do anything that will provide relief right now. But anger is really a red flag of warning that’s meant to make us turn around before we go too far in some dangerous direction. Anger is a needed service, as is its simmering sidekick, resentment.
When we learn to get the message, we can make short work of raging and stewing and turn our energies on the unfinished business that is causing all that misery. Serenity may well depend on using these emotions as stepping-stones rather than roadblocks.
Uninvestigated anger and resentment halt my forward progress.
June 5 Hope is a risk that we must run. George Bernanos “Where there’s life there’s hope” is certainly true, but the reverse is an even more valuable truth: “Where there’s hope, there’s life.”
Despair can seem the only realistic response to problems that are too deeply rooted or long-standing. When all our efforts have been mocked, all of our prayers seemingly unanswered, we may feel like fools to keep on clinging to the tattered little shred of hope we still have in our hearts. But as long as our hope is alive, so are we.
An attitude of hopelessness is more of a problem than any problem. Is the steadfast parent who hopes for an addicted child’s recovery better or worse off than the parent who has given up? Is the indomitable cancer patient who hopes for a medical breakthrough stronger or weaker for refusing to give in? Hope doesn’t guarantee that the child will recover or the cancer will be overcome, but it does guarantee that we will be active agents of positive change for ourselves and our loved ones. Who is to say that might not tip the balance?
Hope creates spiritual energy.
June 6 To smell the roses is not enough. They must be tended, also. Anonymous Remember Aesop’s fable about the ant and the grasshopper? Unlike the busy ant, all the grasshopper did was smell the roses and enjoy life. When the winter came, he was out of luck. He would have starved if the ants hadn’t been willing to share the food they had stored up. Such are the risks by those who consume without contributing.
In building self-esteem, we often have to learn to appreciate all the good things that are around us. But we are as shortsighted as the grasshopper if we take those things too much for granted. Many of the beautiful things around us are not our due-they were put there and are being maintained by others.
Self-respect requires that we make a contribution. It’s a wonderful thing to become aware of the many graces and benefits we receive in our daily lives. But it’s even more wonderful-and much healthier-to be-come aware of relationship between give and take. When we tend some roses so that others may smell them, we give back some of the blessings we have received.
A sense of purpose makes self-esteem bloom.
June 7 The best is yet to be. Robert Browning “The best is yet to be” is a poetic sentiment. The belief that the best is yet to be is a way of life that can lead us to a constantly expanding awareness and appreciation of ourselves and others.
Low self-esteem, of course, pooh-poohs the possibility that anything can get better, let alone that some marvelous adventure may be just around the corner. Yet that belief is exactly the right prescription for negativity, cynicism, and all the other ailments that prevent our enjoyment of life.
Once we accept the dignity and the responsibility of choosing, how could we doubt that the best is still to come? If today’s choice is good, and we have the power to choose the content of our tomorrows, there are sure to be better days ahead. Of course, they won’t all be up days, but as long as we can choose the positive over the negative, the smile over the frown, we can be absolutely confident that we will not have dreamed and hoped and labored in vain. Goodness creates goodness multiplied, one day at a time, as far as we can see into the future and beyond.
Hope in the future creates a sense of joyful expectancy.
June 8 Be thine own, palace, or the world’s thy jail. John Donne By whose standards are we doing well or not so well? Every time we check ourselves out, we’re positioning ourselves against one yardstick or another. Obviously, we need to be very choosy in our selection of yardsticks. It’s a mistake to automatically accept any outside evaluation as a gospel truth. We need to think for ourselves if we want to take charge of our self-esteem.
The tendency to people please is very powerful. It not only gets us approval but it lets us off the hook. But our own approval is even more important. When we find ourselves second-guessing other people’s wishes, we need to think their counsel through before we swallow it whole. Advice from others can be helpful, but only as a guide. Only as input to inform our own decision making.
There’s dignity in running our own lives according to our own standards. Only the decisions that we make will truly satisfy us. Satisfying others may be socially convenient, but it won’t give us the self-respect we’re striving for.
Growing self-confidence allows me to be my own decision maker.
June 9 Be yourself. “The Desiderata” Great teachers have always counseled us to be ourselves. From the admonishment “Know thyself,” inscribed over the ancient temple door at Delphi, to the above-quoted advice from “The Desiderata,” wise people seem to have long known there is an amazing amount of power in simply being who we are. Self-esteem, of course, is the artwork that rests on the pedestal of self-knowledge.
It isn’t possible to become comfortable and positive toward ourselves if we won’t be ourselves. That can only happen if we accept who we are without putting on airs, wearing masks, or trying to be someone other than ourselves.
Even without makeup or props, we are wonderful people who have every right to feel good about ourselves. To constantly run in the rat race of competition, comparison, and jealousies is to exhaust ourselves for nothing. Other people are not our enemies or opponents or judges. We can be our own true selves without feeling pressured to change colors like a chameleon in a thousand different situations.
Self-knowledge sets me free from the judgment of others.
June 10 What is our praise or pride but to imagine excellence, and try to make it? Richard Wilbur Developing healthy self-esteem means growing ever more comfortable with who we are in and of ourselves-not how we stack up in comparison with others. The ancient Greeks’ concept of excellence, which they called arête, had nothing to do with superiority over others, as it does in our culture. To the Greeks, excellence was achieved when people became all they could be. Accomplishing that meant finding as many balances in life as possible. Their ideal, unlike ours, was “moderation in all things.”
Constantly comparing and competing can be ruinous, especially as far as self-esteem goes. There will always be greater and lesser persons than ourselves. An comparisons often lead to either arrogance or bitterness. Neither unholy glee in winning nor crushing disappointment in losing promotes a realistic, balanced self-concept.
What does it matter how much others do or have? If we are striving for excellence, we are winning our own race. Our only opponents are our own deficiencies.
To achieve excellence in my life is to achieve my own potential.
June 11 To see things as they are, the eyes must be open; to see things as other than they are, they must be open even wider. To see things as better than they are, they must be open to the full. Antonio Machado y Ruiz Our perceptions are like the knotholes in a fence through which we peek at life. Although the view we get is limited, what we see is the truth as much as we are able to see it. Low self-esteem is always built around a narrow, limited perception that we have mistaken for the big picture. In fact most of what we regard as real is nothing more than our perception of reality. Thus our perceptions create our reality.
Not surprisingly, our negative perceptions were almost always formed when we were too young to understand what we saw on the other side of the knothole. In our innocence and inexperience, we thought we saw the big picture, the only picture. That’s why self-esteem issues are so often Adult Child issues. Both are matters of early imprinting. That imprinting may very well be interpreting reality for us today.
What are the facts of life as we see them? If we believe that nothing good will ever happen to us, or that we are responsible for anything bad that happens to others, we need to go back to the fence and take another look. The world is wider now than it seemed to us when we were children.
Different perceptions create different options.
June 12 Inward ho! Christopher Morley Everyday life seems like dull stuff indeed compared to the dramatic exploits of fantasy. Oh, if we only had been born in a more exciting time and place! We could have been explorers or inventors or mountain climbers or astronauts. Too bad we didn’t have the opportunity to take on a heroic challenge-something we could really sink our teeth into. How wonderful it would have been. If only we’d had the chance.
But the chance for adventure is always there, knocking at the door. Talk about challenge! If we want mountains to climb and new territories to explore, we need look no further than our own hearts and minds. Want to scale a treacherous peak? Choose your weakest social skill and try inching your way up to a respectable level of competence. Want to chart a wilderness? Work on a Fourth Step inventory or a family of origin investigation.
Our time and place is now and here-as is our opportunity to do all the pioneering we’ve ever dreamed of. As in all other times and places, courage and imagination are all that’s needed to go where no one has ever gone before!
Self-discovery is a greater adventure than any other; inward ho!
June 13 Often the difference between a successful marriage and a mediocre one consists of leaving about three or four things a day unsaid. Harlan Miller An unstoked fire doesn’t take long to flicker and fizzle. You don’t need a bucket of water to douse the flames, just the lack of attention will do. Relationships are like that too. If they go too long ignored, they start to die.
It’s terribly difficult to maintain positive self-esteem in the midst of a failing relationship. Because of what we don’t do, our relationships, like all living things, grow stronger or weaker every day. How easy it is, in our superbusy world, simply not to notice that a beloved relationship is faltering. How easy it would also have been to add some wood before the flame died completely.
It’s common sense as well as positive spirituality to make sure that we make good connections with our loved one on a daily basis. There is no substitute for paying attention to our partners, saying words that heal and encourage. And there is certainly no substitute for touch-a pat on the shoulder, a squeeze of the hand, a passing hug. What priority could be greater? When the “us” is lost, the world is cold indeed.
Self-esteem slips when my priorities slip.
June 14 We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are. The Talmud The same blossoming cherry tree looks like profit to the grower, a painting to the artist, a bookcase to the woodworker, and a feast to the birds. What we see is often different than the objective reality in front of our faces. Depending on our viewpoint, any event or circumstance may be wonderful ,or awful opportune, or disappointing. Usually we see what we expect to see.
Building self-esteem means having our eyes checked. We need to know how much of us is creeping into the picture we see outside of us. We need to be aware that past experience can distort the present and that motives cause us to squint. To clearly envision a better world and a better us, we may have to throw out our old glasses.
Is a joke just a joke or is it a veiled insulted? Are our children burdens or blessings? Does the future look rosy or gray? Our answers to questions like these reflect interior, not exterior, realities. The good news is that these are the only realities that we’re in charge of. If we choose to, we can get out of our own light and the sun shine on a golden road we’ve never seen before.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
June 15 When I work, I work. But when I sit, I sit loose. Appalachian Saying In this fast-paced world, so full of stress, learning how to relax is even more important than learning how to get ahead. It may be, as a matter of fact, that we will have better careers if we take better care of our “equipment.” Our bodies and minds are wonderful of machines, of course, but all machines have a breaking point. The sad fact is that many us simply don’t know when or how to turn off our motors, We haven’t let down in so long we seem to have lost the ability.
Here are a few tips for lightening up a grinding workday:
Sit loose; hum a tune; call a friend for a quick hello.
Unclench your jaw; let it go limp.
Walk up and down stairs a couple of times a day.
Stretch, touch your toes; raise your arms up over your head.
Take deep breaths.
Learning a few relaxation techniques to use when we’re under pressure can be a lifesaver. Not only do such physical and mental exercises relieve stiff necks and headaches, they also help us bring better energy back to the job.
Taking a few stress breaks every day helps me keep my perspective.
June 16 Anger is not evil. It is simply power waiting to be directed. S. Dale Smith How each of us handles anger is a matter of personal style. Some of us slam doors or throw things. Some of us mutter insults through clenched teeth or bellow in rage. Others go to bed with sick headaches, and still others simply deny that they are ever angry.
Incapacity for anger is just as unhealthy and dysfunctional as smashing dishes or screaming uncontrollably. Wild “acting out” is one kind of problem, but repressive “acting in” is a problem, too. Anger is a normal emotional response to perceived injustice. To be out of touch with our own anger against life’s unfairnesses is to be out of touch with a major chunk of reality. It isn’t normal never to feel outrage in this often outrageous world.
Better far to admit our anger and convert it into positive action. We are stronger, not weaker, when we channel legiticate anger and use it as a power source to solve the problems we’re angry about. Confronting unfairness builds self-esteem because it makes us feel good about ourselves. Maybe directed anger is just the generator we’ve been looking for.
Anger isn’t too hot to handle if I direct its energy.
June 17 The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. William James It’s not unusual to panic when we recognize some of the mistakes we have made and the years of practice we have put into unwittingly handicapping our own self-esteem. But panic is the last thing we need when we sincerely want to turn our lives around.
Building self-esteem means unearthing the truth and getting to know our own history and the forces that have made us who we are. In the process of self-discovery, we inevitably come face to face with those mistakes and behavior patterns that cause our unhappiness. Sometimes these new insights make us feel even worse about ourselves than we did before. “How could I have been so stupid?” we may groan. “I must be the dumbest person on the planet. My life is waste. It is too late.”
But it’s never too late and almost nothing is fatal. What was learned can be unlearned. Old habits can be overturned and replaced by new, positive habits. The new way-that and the willingness to reach out to other caring, growing people. With such new resources, we are in a position to write our own glorious history from here on out.
I can fly into the future if I leave the past behind.
June 18 A mob has many heads, but no brain. Shankara Recent research has led brain specialists to understand that the human mind works less like a computer than a town meeting. Apparently there are many inputs offering different responses to the issues that confront us. And the brain cells that “speak” the loudest get heard and acted on.
Who calls the shots for us when self-esteem issues demand settlement? If one input says, “Face it; deal with it,” and another input says “Hide till it blos over,” which command drowns out the other? Does panic speak louder than patience? Is “Attack” a roar and “Negotiate! Just a whisper?
Sorting out contradictory messages is a primary task of those who would foster their self-esteem. If we give all our “voices” equal time-or repeatedly back off from the bully in the crowd-our lives are subject to mob rule. But if we listen, think, and practice filtering out the negative messages, the noise of the rabble will die down. If we persist in our efforts, the calm voice of reason will get stronger and stronger. The mob that heckled us toward diminished life will be quited by reason’s gavel. Then decisions can be made as they are supposed to be made-at an orderly town council meeting where the best tactic is chosen from many.
Nature gives me inner contradictions; character gives me choice.
June 19 It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem. G. K. Chesterton Every man Mary dates turns out to be a cheat and a liar. Jack has never had a boss who was reasonable or fair. Kim gets a stomachache every time she goes on vacation. Paul’s relatives always get their hands on every penny he’s got. What’s going on here? Are these the unluckiest people in the world, or what?
The dooming “what” in many of our lives isn’t fate or coincidence or bad luck. It’s the role we play in a drama we keep writing as we go along. For some reason-and there is a reson if we could dig deep enough to find it-we cast ourselves as losers. Then scene after scene, act after act, we get victimized by the bad-guy characters.
Because the problem is us, the solution, obviously, is to rewrite the script. Soap operas kill off the characters that get tiresome and predictable’ why can’t we? Victimhood isn’t compatible with growth. If we want a happier ending, we’re going to have to stop walking onto the same old sets and repeating the same old lines. We deserve a chance at a new role.
Once recognized, self-defeating patterns can be crossed out and rewritten.
June 20 Buffaloes are held by cords, man by his words. Malay Proverb We can’t work with what we haven’t got. That’s why we can’t think of ourselves except in the terms we use to think about anyone else. To put it another way, the words we use for ourselves and others show how we think of ourselves and others.
We might claim that we rarely use any words to talk about ourselves, meaning that most of us reveal very little that’s personal to others. But all of us talk about ourselves to ourselves! There is a constant flow of self-talk, an inner dialogue, going on within. People with low self-esteem have learned to live with words like useless, stupid, and ugly. These are the kind of words we use to describe how we succeed or fail, how we look, how we react to others, and what they must think of us. And we tend to give others the same kind of going over we give ourselves.
Consider this: What power we have when we consciously decide to use only positive, supportive words, first with ourselves and then with others. What wonders can happen if we start using a whole new vocabulary!
It’s interesting and instructive to stop and listen to myself talking to myself.
June 21 He is a man whom it is impossible to please because he is never pleased with himself .Goethe How much of our self-esteem depends on what other people think? Too much. How often do we withhold self-approval until approval from other sources tells us it’s okay? Too often. Whether we’re coming out of modesty or fear, we make a mistake when we assume that outside evaluations are more accurate than any inner reading we may have. Who knows us better than ourselves?
Other people’s indifferent or negative reactions to us may have nothing to do with us and everything to do with them. Maybe the person we are trying to please can’t be pleased. Perhaps there is no possibility that we, or anyone else, will ever get positive feedback from that negative source. Some people are so full of fear, resentment, and hurt, that their major effect on life is to make everyone as miserable as they are. Obviously, when we look to such people for validation, we look in vain. As we learn to be more honest with ourselves, we can more comfortably trust our own judgment.
I wouldn’t give a bank robber my savings to hold. Why should I let negative people take charge of my self-esteem?
June 22 In the mind and nature of a man a secret is an ugly thing, like a hidden physical defect. Isak Dinesen A friend who confides a secret has every right to expect us to keep that information to ourselves. If we claim to be mature, trustworthy people, we must behave that way. Perhaps we, too, have the need of a trusted listener.
What lives in the dark, grows in the dark. Do we have deep, shame-inducing secrets that we keep locked away, terrified to tell anyone? Refusing to reveal such secrets can produce personal monsters-real fire-breathing, ferocious monsters that will intimidate us and control our lives if we don’t bring them out in the light.
Unshared secrets tend to grow. In the darkness, the mouse becomes the lion; in the light of revelation, however, the lion becomes the harmless mouse. Even the most dreadful secrets lose their power to frighten us when we say their names out loud. And what we share with others is not what drives them away, but what binds us to them, deepening the trusted friendship. If we have been imprisoning our self-esteem behind some long held, festering secret, we can turn on the sunshine by simply telling someone about it.
Shared troubles are cut in half.
June 23 Practice makes imperfect. Mariette Hartley The unusual twist on the saying we’re accustomed to may seem off at first. But it depends on what we’re practicing. What if we’re spending time in the pursuit of some attitude or habit that diminishes the quality of our lives?
Subconsciously we may regularly practice avoiding conflict at all costs, stalling on decisions, always putting work before play, or play before work. If we practice hard enough, there is no limit to just how imperfect we may become! Eventually, we could be world-class perfectionists, controllers, manipulators, or workaholics.
All self-esteem is rooted in our attitudes, habits, and perceptions. Those that are already healthy translate into positive self-esteem. Those that are negative are the basis of our negative self-esteem. There’s no question about the power of practice. What we need to check out is what it is that we are practicing.
Practicing some things can make me worse.
June 24 Most of what we want to be, we already are. Kevin K. How easy it is to become anxious and upset over what we are not and who we are not. As if we were starting out from scratch to create worthy selves! What a disastrous impact this mistaken idea has on our self-esteem.
Just as the oak is in the acorn, we already are most of what we want to be. At least in germ, if not in full flower. The potential for development is, and has always been, with us. The task is not to become something totally different, but to develop what we already have, what is already there.
Are we not already capable of loving and being loved? Are we not, at the present time, able to see beauty and celebrate it? To at least some extent, are we not already actively involved in getting better and growing? Believing that we’ll get there is a matter of patience and persistence.
An acorn isn’t worthless because it’s not yet an oak. Neither am I worthless because I’m not yet what I’m going to be.
June 25 No can be a love word. Ron Palmer Much is said in self-esteem literature about the triumph of saying yes. Yes to life! to risk! to intimacy! To bold new adventures! Amen. But there is no universal, absolute goodness to either of the words yes or no .Because much of life is a balancing act, there are times when both words are conducive to positive self-worth, and other times when both are lethal.
No is a word of love and health when we consider lose-lose situations or risks that are not risks at all but traps. For many of us, learning tosay “no” as a complete sentence is a great sign of growth. When we can turn down a bad idea or a dangerous invitation without justification or explanation, we are truly on our way to freedom.
Just as often as it is brave and good and hopeful to say yes it is appropriate and beneficial to say no.
Learning to say no will break my bonds of passivity.
June 26 It is often possible to get greater enjoyment from what we are already doing, rather than try to find something else. L. Don Siebet It is true enough that self-esteem comes from greater fulfillment, which translates to a happy life. In the pursuit of that happiness, many people do just that-passionately go after something, anything, that’s
aren’t necessarily greener.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with keeping our eyes open for new things we might do that are exciting, fun, or just plain different. But there is also something to be said about possessing or developing the wisdom to take more pleasure in what we are already doing. Perhaps our dissatisfaction is really more with ourselves than with our jobs, our friends, or our current activities.
If we enjoy a hobby, is that not marvelous in itself? If we find that looking at new houses or cars gives us a lift, it may be that we don’t need to find something else that is “really” fun. Maybe we need to organize more activities with our friends rather than find new friends. Can that not be done right where we are? Maybe the job we already have would be more interesting if we threw more energy into it. Need we be in some other, more glamorous place than where we are? Greater self-esteem always generates greater happiness. Maybe we can have it right where we are now, and from what we’re already doing.
Sometimes it’s only my attitudes that need changing.
June 27 The guts carry the feet, not the feet the guts. Miguel de Cervantes Mitch’s boy is arrested for dealing drugs. Diane finds another lump in her breast. Lupe’s husband is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Art is fired three years before he’s eligible for retirement. Every day in every city and town, thousands of people are confronted with paralyzing personal disasters. How do people survive, let alone cope with, such things?
Everyday gripes and irritations are put in their place very quickly when catastrophe grabs us by the throat. Suddenly there is no time or energy to fuss about going bald or growing old. The urgency of the situation demands that we focus every strength we have, every resource, on just moving one step at a time. Thus is character forged on the white-hot anvil of necessity.
It takes raw courage to stand fast when every fiber of our being wants to hide under the covers, split, or retaliate in some self-destructive way. But like any business, tragic business is taken care of by walking through it, one foot ahead of the other, one day at a time. Plain old guts-the kind we didn’t think we had in us-is what carries us through the cruelest challenges.
One step at a time is the way to bear unbearable sorrows.
June 28 Character consists of what you do on the third or fourth tries. James Michener Most of us want to play the piano, not learn the piano; speak a foreign language, not study it; enjoy success, not earn it. We want our dreams to come true quickly and without too much effort. We don’t want to accept the becoming that comes before being.
But character is built, not wished into being. Character is a prerequisite of self-esteem, the wind in the sails of success. And in spite of our daydreams, character is always earned the hard way-by getting up after failure and trying again. And again. And again.
So what if we promised ourselves to quit smoking by now? We can set ourselves a new deadline and try again. Have we failed a second time to make a dreaded phone call? Try a third. Has the ladder to success slipped out from under us again? Maybe it will take another three or four tries. Once we arrive, no one cares how long it took for us to get there.
Character building is a lifelong enterprise.
June 29 How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares if there seemed any danger of their coming true! Logan Pearsall Smith Wishful thinking can actually prevent our dreams from coming true. When we fantasize about perfect life circumstances, we’re not out there on the playing field, where life is lived. And it’s only in the rough-and-tumble where skill can be gained, points scored, and the game won.
Self-esteem is built on the flesh-and-blood selves we are in the real world-not in our daydreams. Rather than wishing to be different kinds of people doing different kinds of work in different kinds of places, we can change our daydreams. When it comes right down to it, we all have the same wish-for happiness, freedom, peace of mind. The difference is in our imaginings of what it would take to make that dream come true.
Singing Madame Butterfly or pitching for the Yankees would be fun, all right, but it wouldn’t make us more trustworthy, kind, or courageous. It wouldn’t erase the sad events of the past; nothing can. Even if our glamorous dreams came true, we’d still be human beings with problems, blind spots, and limitations. As far as we know, the lives we have now are the only lives we’re going to get. Let’s live our days, not dream them away.
The only “perfect” life for me is the one God gave me.
June 30 From the cowardice that dares not face new truths, From the laziness that is content with half-truths, From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truths, Good Lord, deliver me. Kenyan Prayer Successful life management must be based on reality. Because, in turn, reality must be based on truth, we need to be very watchful for attitudes that would blind us to the truth.
In the quest for self-esteem, sometimes new truths must be faced:
- This really is a bad place for me, even if it is familiar.
- This repeated failure is partly my fault.
- It is time for me to act.
- Nothing good ever happens to me.
- I have no choice in this affair.
- The world really is evil.
- I know all of this already.
- Groups don’t work, because “they” are all too sick.
- Reading is a waste of time.
I must work to become aware of my underlying attitudes.
