November 1 The only people for me are the mad ones…the ones who never yawn and say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.
The enormous success of the first Rocky movie surprised the experts. They saw it as just another low-budget boxing story. Little did they guess it would win so many awards and capture the imagination of millions all over the world.
The experts didn’t foresee that the story was really about us. They didn’t recognize that the magic of the Rocky character was in his very ordinariness. Rocky was “just a guy,” after all, an unlikely, unpromising unknown who didn’t look one bit different than any other young punk on the street. But viewers saw that immediately and they identified with it. When Rocky dared to buck the odds, to come roaring out of nowhere, and shoot for the top, they identified with that, too. Rocky’s success was ours; if Rocky can do it, maybe I can, too.
Real life is not lived on the silver screen, of course. But even movie messages may deliver important truths that can inspire our real lives. The central truth of the Rocky phenomenon is that passion and dedication can move mountains. However humble our beginnings, if we have “fire in the belly,” those who bet against us will have a big surprise coming.
Desire and discipline can overcome impossible odds.
November 2 One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.
One way to avoid hurt in this world is to kill all feelings. Another is to see nothing: withdraw, close up like a deep-water clam does when it senses a threat. Then everything that swims by is put off by that impenetrable shell.
Unlike clams, however, we cannot hide in a defensive shell without damaging ourselves. There’s no way around it. If we take a good look at what’s going on in the world, and try to be responsive to it, there will be sadness. At this stage of human evolution there is much to be sad about.
Compassion has a price. If we choose to care, we must first choose to grow in maturity. We must learn to acknowledge all that is painful in this world, all the human failing--without being consumed by it. As real and distressing as all the sad things are, they are not the totality of human experience. Just as our compassion is not the totality of who we are. We need always to recognize the existence of what is good as well as what is not.
As I seek truth, I will find enough good to keep me going.
November 3 Self-help must precede help from others. Even for making certain of help from heaven, one has to help oneself.
When all is said and done, we are responsible for what happens to our lives. Not that we can control circumstances, but the ultimate decisions as to attitude, acceptance, and behavior are in our hands. Other people may give us our start, but our finish is up to us.
Sonny’s self-esteem was taking a beating because of his many failed relationships with women. Again and again, this sweet, good-looking man had been certain that “this was it.” Then, mysteriously to him, the woman backed out, called it off. Until he got professional help, Sonny didn’t realize that he was subconsciously restaging the drama of his mother’s rejection. At forty-one, he was still looking to the woman in his life for the unconditional acceptance and approval that he had been denied so many years ago. Not so mysteriously, his women friends decided to look for partners who were perhaps less sweet, but certainly less needy.
Over time, Sonny learned that he had been unrealistic and unfair in his relationships. By letting go of the past, he reclaimed his power to function in the present—as a man rather than a boy. At last he took his self-esteem out of his mother’s hands. As must we.
Until I leave “what was” behind me, I will keep reliving it.
November 4 To cope effectively with problems or to rise triumphantly to challenges may require courage, patience, sustained energy, and imagination, but it also requires something even more basic: realism.
Self-esteem is based on truth. Before it is the cause of good, it is the result of our ability to accept the truth about ourselves. Knowledge of our real selves is what we’re after—not the puffed-up or shrunken images that come and go with good days and bad days. The core self standing naked before a mirror is the one we must come to terms with.
Lack of realism is a powerful enemy of positive self-esteem. If the truth is that we always hated school, it isn’t likely that we’re going to become college professors. If we’re 100 pounds overweight, prospects are not great for a modeling career. Realistically, we need to focus on what can be, not what is impossible. We need to work with what we’ve got, not what we wish we had.
To live without realism is to live in a deluded world where self-esteem is impossible. We need to be honest with ourselves about our limits. Circumstances such as age or health may impose limits that weren’t there yesterday. So be it. It’s today and who we are today that counts. When we match our dreams to our nakedness, we’re on our way.
Bucking reality is a fool’s game that always ends in defeat.
November 5 Fare thee well for I must leave thee, do not let this parting grieve thee. Just remember that the best of friends must part.
By far the most difficult decisions are of the “letting go” variety. That’s no surprise when we consider how hard it is to get rid of a trusty old car or a ragged, but favorite, old sweater. They’ve been around for a long time, they’re comfortable, and we remember them as they once were. How much more we dread the loss of a sour relationship that once was sweet!
But there are times when we can’t go forward until we say good-bye to what’s behind us. When our best efforts can’t make a relationship work, that relationship is over. We owe it to ourselves and to the other person to make a clean break. Painful as parting is, self-esteem demands that we find the honesty and courage to get on with our lives.
No matter what we tell ourselves, we’re not doing the person a favor when we stall and postpone a necessary farewell. It’s our own pain and guilt that makes us drag our feet. Cowardice isn’t kindness. Kindness is giving the other person the same chance for happiness that we want for ourselves.
Procrastination doubles the pain of parting.
November 6 The world is sown good: but unless I turn my glad thoughts into practical living and till my own field, I cannot reap a kernel of the good. Helen Keller
Sometimes, when we’re trudging the road of self-renewal, we get a free ride when we least expect it. It may be a dazzling insight, a rocketlike boost of emotion, or a profoundly deep faith experience. Maybe it comes while we’re reading or walking down the street or just falling asleep. But whenever or wherever they happen, these unexpected peak experiences are marvels that we should treasure.
But we should also recognize that no moment of bliss, no lightning bolt of absolute certainty, can last forever. A peak experience is more of an indication of what can be than a stable state of being.
As it was and always will be, after the experience comes the work. The freebies that come to us are meant to be appreciated, remembered, and then used as a shining star by which we plot our course. Trudging isn’t thrilling, but it’s the only known road to lasting change.
No one gets a steady diet of peak experiences.
November 7 Responsibility (n): A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, fate, fortune, luck, or ones’s neighbor.
Blaming never healed a wound. Making excuses never made an improvement. It is one thing to recognize that there are reasons we may find ourselves in a self-esteem slump. But it is another thing entirely to take responsibility for pulling ourselves out of it.
After the fact, what difference do the whos and whys really make? If our toes have been run over, it’s our flat toes we have to worry about—not what kind of vehicle it was or whether the driver had a license. Why were we standing in the street? That’s the worthwhile kind of question that can do us some good: What’s the “me factor” in the problem?
Much of my difficulty is created by something in me--a thought pattern, an ingrained habit, a perception of myself. I am my biggest burden and most difficult problem. “They” are not responsible for what happens to me. I am responsible. I have the power.
Hope and power abound when I take responsibility for myself in the here and now.
November 8 Happiness: I have earned it. I am taking it.
Most of us would say we want happiness more than anything in life. Strange, then, isn’t it, that we have so many ways to postpone it, block it, even break its grip if it reaches out to hug us. Why do we do that?
The low self-esteem that prohibits happiness is often caused by shame. For very deep, subjective reasons, we have decided, or accepted someone else’s decision, that we don’t deserve happiness or success. “People like us” somehow shouldn’t expect to be happy. The self-image that ties into “people like us” may have to do with our nationality or religion or race. It may have to do with the neighborhood we came from, or the fact that we never had much money. Whatever the negative, limiting identity, the fact is that it hobbles our pursuit of happiness just as surely as if our feet were roped together.
“People like us” who are sincerely learning and growing, have every right to be happy. We don’t need the guilt and shame that have woven themselves into such a heavy, leaden overcoat. No one can make us wear it if we decide we’re not going to anymore. And no one but ourselves can keep us from satisfying the deepest desire of the human heart.
“People like us” deserve all the happiness we can get.
November 9 An agreeable companion on a journey is as good as a carriage.
Everywhere we go we find good apples and bad apples. There are negative people who for many reasons walk a low road themselves and invite us to travel the same path. Because they don’t expect clear weather or good road conditions, they never find them. Chuckholes are what they know and chuckholes are what they get. As long as we walk with them, we travel under the same conditions.
There are also positive people, who for equally varied reasons, have chosen to walk the high road. They, too, find pretty much what they expect to find as they mosey along. Mostly they get sunny days, straight routes, and interesting experiences along the way. They don’t expect to run into problems they can’t handle, so for the most part they don’t. Walking in their company gives us the same kind of trip.
We can join either caravan we want to. As long as we’re alive we’re traveling one road or the other. Shall we define the journey in terms of sprained ankles and lost luggage, or in terms of progress and adventure? The choice would seem not too hard to make.
The quality of my journey is largely defined by the quality of my companions.
November 10 Of all the passions, fear weakens judgment most.
Fear is a terrible obstacle to healthy self-esteem. Our fear of everything from failure to success to rejection leads us first to a mental shutdown and then to paralysis. Stagnation results. And in that dead pool of stagnation, self-esteem drowns.
Fear has been explained as F-alse E-vidence A-ppearing R-eal. Although there certainly are many legitimate things to be afraid of, much of the fear that handicaps self-esteem is false. False in the sense that what once was real, no longer is. In the past, it may have been true that others abused us, denied us our rights, or coldly ignored us. But that happened in childhood, when we had no choice.
What’s true in the here and now may be that those old feelings, perceptions and boundaries are no longer relevant. Today, they are false in the sense that we have outgrown their power. As we make our own choices about how we want to live and who we want to believe, a whole new world opens up to us. Fear is slavery. Overcoming fear is freedom—and the very wings of the sweet bird of self-esteem.
Yesterday’s threats can’t touch us today.
November 11 All seems infected to the infected spy, as all looks yellow to jaundiced eye.
It can be infuriating to hear someone say that a very obvious, concrete issue we’re struggling with is an “attitude problem.” When we’re pounding away at some unyielding difficulty, the last thing we want to hear is, “It’s all in your head.” Such comments make us feel that our intelligence, not to mention our sanity, is being discounted. We resent the oversimplification of what seems to us a very complex dilemma.
The truth may well be that our problem is as real and as hard to crack as a slab of marble. Yet it may also be true that some attitude we’re bringing to the problem is wearing us out more than the problem is! After all, our attitudes define our problems in the first place. Attitudes are the tinted glass through which we see our problems. So, of course, our attitudes always precede our actions; they get there first.
A creative attitude transform many setbacks and disappointments into learning experiences. A receptive, sensitive attitude lifts the cloak of everydayness off many beautiful sights and amusing events. An independent attitude can spin the straw of loneliness into golden solitude. A roll-up-the-sleeves, can-do attitude is the best problem solver there is.
The power of my attitudes is greater than the power of my problems.
November 12 To the man whose senses are alive and alert, there is not even the need to stir from his threshold.
Low self-esteem is often associated with boredom. When nothing seems interesting or worth doing, we can lose interest in our own lives. Thus our hunger for excitement and entertainment. Often, when we feel empty inside, we direct our search for meaning outward. We look outside ourselves to find something to distract us from the monotony of the everyday.
Maybe it takes us a while, maybe it even happens by accident, but sooner or later we discover that our own minds can be a veritable entertainment factory! When we learn to tap in to our own creativity, our own ideas and musings can give us endless enjoyment. Who can be bored when there are so many interesting things to think about?
Who is the greatest person who ever lived? Why? What would be the best possible vacation? Why? What is the highest possible goal that I could realistically reach in the next year? What would it take to get started? What is my best quality? How can I showcase that quality? If I had three wishes, what would they be? What one thing would I change about the world if I could? What most needs to be done? There’s no limit to the things I can think about.
My ability to wonder and think is a reliable source of pleasure.
November 13 Nothing is more fatal to health than an over care of it. Benjamin Franklin
Modern health care has come a long way. Rather than focusing exclusively on illness, many enlightened practitioners now encourage patients to focus on wellness, instead. By emphasizing the health of the whole, they are better able to deal with the dysfunctional part. The switch in emphasis makes a profound difference; much like the difference between studying peace and studying war.
Mental and emotional health can be approached in the same way. When we’re only interested in what’s wrong, that’s all we’ll find when we go searching for self-knowledge. And what is self-esteem but a positive picture of ourselves? We can actually cause ourselves self-esteem problems by dwelling on the various scars and bruises that life has given us. As if we’re nothing more than the sum total of our injuries.
We are far more whole and healthy than we are sick. Of course, it’s important to know what’s wrong and get busy fixing it. But we should never, never define ourselves by our wounds. To do so is to discount our true value and to disclaim the many benefits of health and happiness.
By focusing on wellness, I give self-esteem a chance to heal.
November 14 There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. William Shakespeare
Assumptions are risky in every area of life. Because self-image so heavily depends on what other people reflect back to us, our assumptions in this area can be especially dangerous.
We may be hurt because someone snubbed us—but a whole different story often submerges when we check it out. Perhaps the person was preoccupied with a concern of his own, or may just have been tired. Or suppose we assume that someone doesn’t approve of what we are doing. It isn’t unusual to find out later that she didn’t even know what we were doing. Or didn’t care.
Wearing our self-esteem on our sleeve makes us very vulnerable. If we take people’s mistakes or honest disagreements as a personal affront, we turn our spiritual path into a mine field. We need to think twice before we assume once. We need to stop creating misunderstanding and start taking responsibility for our own thin skin.
Assumptions are not facts.
November 15 The really heroic people are not those who travel 10,000 miles by dog sled, but those who stay 10,000 days in one place.
When we hear someone shout, “Fire!” we’d better run. When we hear someone yell, “Twister!” we quickly look for cover. One of the first things we learn is to get out of the way when we see trouble or danger bearing down on us.
Many times running is perfectly appropriate. A quick response has often saved lives and limbs. But at other times, running away is the worst possible thing we can do. There are situations, in fact, when self-respect goes out the window if we go out the door. Unless we stand fast and face these situations, we leave too much of us behind.
Those who fear intimacy get itchy feet when a loving someone gets too close. Those who fear success can think of a thousand reasons to close down a promising operation and move on to something else. Those who fear failure hop from one idea to another without making a commitment to any. In all of these situations, our feelings of fear are telling us to quit before we’re hurt. But reason tells us that quitting is hurting and that self-esteem means hanging tough.
Sometimes, devastation can only be avoided by staying put.
November 16 Sometimes I think, the things we see are shadows of the things to be; that what we plan, we build.
Oh, the delight in making plans! Indeed, high-flying plans that never come to fruition can become exercises in frustration. They can knock down our self-esteem instead of building it up. But legitimate plan making is a victory in itself. Just honestly sitting down and starting to set out goals that translate into concrete, doable steps does much to convince us that we can accomplish something. And realizing what we can do is what positive self-esteem is all about. Making realistic plans is an achievement in itself.
We, and our self-esteem along with us, get bogged down when we don’t see the light at the end of some tunnel or another. Perhaps we are stuck in a bad job, or a bad relationship or a negative state of mind. Plans are what get us unstuck. We can’t make a plan without thinking out the steps we must take to get moving in a more positive direction.
What are the steps? Maybe the first step is just to encourage ourselves to think about it. When we tell ourselves that we have options, that we most certainly can do something about our lives, we are not victims.
When I make a plan, I put management back in my life.
November 17 Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.
As we reach our middle years, denial and delusion roll out a red carpet leading us back toward youth. “Turn around now!” these great pretenders tell us, “Reverse the aging process and you can outwit old Father Time!” To pull off this trick we’re advised to try everything from starvation to surgery. Sometimes we cripple ourselves with near-violent exercise and vigorous nightlife-all in the hope of thinking and looking and feeling like the young people we no longer are!
Why do we allow ourselves to be hustled into such a vain pursuit? Was the first half of life such a series of delights that anything beyond it must be less? What are we trying to prove by trying to stop, or even turn back, nature’s clock? Are we trying to fool other people or ourselves? And why are we trying to fool anybody?
Of course, we should do everything we can to maintain our health and a positive, upbeat outlook. But all the artful manipulation in the world doesn’t slow the aging process. At best, it keeps it from showing quite so quickly. The important question isn’t whether or not we should get a hairpiece or a tummy tuck. It’s much more important to know why we want to go to so much trouble to be what we aren’t.
At midlife, I have many more interesting things to do than fight wrinkles.
November 18 Names are but noise and smoke, obscuring heavenly light.
To ask, “Who am I?” is much like asking, “What is reality?” The answer can be a complex exercise in mental gymnastics. On the other hand, because so much of our self-esteem depends on how we define ourselves, the question is an important one that can lead to major growth.
Often an off-the-top-of-the-head answer reveals that we tend to base our identity on what we do. “I’ve always said I was ‘Loren the truck driver,’“ a man told his support group. “Now I’m learning to say, ‘I’m Loren and I happen to drive a truck.’“ Loren is on his way because he knows that he is other than, more than, what he does for a living.
What we do can be taken away. It can change as a result of age, accident, or just plain fate. If our identity is based on that, we are building the castle of our self-esteem on sand. Who we are is a deeper and broader reality than where we go to work or what we do when we get there. Doing contributes to being-but being is the point of the exercise.
My identity doesn’t begin and end with my occupation.
November 19 The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
As embarrassing as it may be to have to line up with the “fools,” most of us have more than a little expertise at procrastination. Of course, we know better. We know that avoiding something that we have to do makes us die a thousand times before we finally act and get relief. And we also know how ashamed we feel when we repeatedly cut and run.
Now that we’re working on our self-esteem, we need to take a serious look at behaviors that shame us. The next time a major decision comes up-should I leave or stay? Speak up or stuff it again? Start a recovery program or put it off one more time”-we need to remember what not deciding does to our self-esteem.
The issue that demands decision will not let us rest in peace until we act on it. The shame that squashes our self-esteem will keep building up, layer upon layer, until we finally do what we have to do. How much better to summon the courage we need today, not six months from now, and simply get it over with. We’ve surely spent enough time hanging out with the fools.
The sooner the better is the only way for recovering procrastinators.
November 20 A decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free.
When faced with a difficult decision, we have an unfortunate tendency to focus on the “before” rather than the “after.” The prize the decision will win for us seems shadowy and vague, while the pain of making the decision is just as real and immediate as a screaming toothache!
New life has never come into this world without labor. We need to remember this the next time a painful decision must be made. Certainly it will be wrenching to give up an addiction of one kind or another-but think of the freedom we’re gaining! If we decide to go back to church or school, we’ll probably feel awkward and out of place for a while, but soon we’ll be full-fledged members of a new community.
Deciding to try anything new may conjure up feelings of fear and self-pity. But self-confidence waits on just the other side of the door. Sometimes we have to take a mighty leap just to keep going forward.
The labor of birth is soon forgotten in the joy of new life.
November 21 History is the record of an encounter between character and circumstance.
The history of the world is a terrible and wonderful story of the contest between people and their circumstances. From the invention of the wheel to the splitting of the atom, the human race has struggled to do, to be, to leave its mark from one generation to the next. Through revolutions and wars, inventions and discoveries, the choices that people made told the story. Dishonorable, cowardly decisions invariably have led us to corruption and destruction. Honorable, visionary decisions have led us to creation and advancement.
The course of our own, personal histories is much the same. Each life is a struggle between the opposing forces of deterioration and creativity, hope and despair, vision or blindness. Chapter by chapter, we make the choices. Because this is our own story, we are both the bad guys and the good guys. So what will it be-Attila the Hun or Charlemagne the Wise? Hitler? Gandhi? The death dealer or the peacemaker? We decide.
Everyday circumstances await the content of character to determine if this moment will be a golden renaissance or a dark age. Choosing is our privilege as well as our responsibility. Whether we want it or not, the pen is in our hand.
My self-esteem rides on the rules I assign myself.
November 22 God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.
If we could see into the future, we’d save ourselves from more than a few dead ends and stubbed toes, wouldn’t we? Just a quick peek is all we’d need. Then we could make mistake-proof judgments about what’s worth working at and worrying about. We wouldn’t have to stretch and strain so much because we’d already know what was going to work out and what wasn’t.
Ah, but there’s the rub. Nothing of value comes to be without stretching and straining. It is not knowing that keeps us going and growing. It’s the very uncertainty of the search, the challenge flung in the face of doubt, that builds character and integrity. The patience we bring to the process is what builds self-esteem.
An easier life is not always a better life. Fat cats have little muscle-and muscle is what gets us down the road. The fact that we’re left to our own devices, our own path finding, means that we’re free to create our own fortress.
A thoroughly mapped-out, predictable life wouldn’t be very lively.
November 23 The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
At first glance, the statement above seems absurd. What could be wrong with a father wanting his children to be a credit to him? The point, however, is the difference of emphasis. Is it more important for a child to be a credit to his parents-or to himself? How much deference does a child owe his parents? How much credit can a parent realistically expect?
Repairing our self-esteem often includes disentangling from our sense of guilt or failure over not measuring up to what we thought our parents wanted us to be. Even if that was not what we wanted to be-we may feel we let them down, that we weren’t a credit to them.
But what a child wants to do, within the boundaries of the good and healthy of course, may differ considerably from what the parents see as suitable. Even such minor considerations as hairstyles, choice of music, or church attendance can become major issues that deeply affect the self-esteem of both parent and child. Twice blessed is the parent who can say, “I love you, of course-but what really makes me happy is that you love you.”
The best parents know they succeed when they put themselves out of the job.
November 24 Holidays have no pity.
Some of us would rather face a month of Mondays than a single holiday. The worst are those, like Thanksgiving, that are supposed to deliver enough family warmth to carry us through the rest of the year. How shamed and resentful we feel when it seems that everyone else is going “over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house” while we’re eating a baloney sandwich in front of the TV.
The fact is that many of us do not have loving, welcoming families. We don’t want to go home for Thanksgiving. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with us. We aren’t less worthy than people who come from healthier families. And it doesn’t mean that we have no reason to give thanks, either. The baloney is of our own choosing: we could pop a little turkey into the oven if we wanted to. Invite a friend. Talk and laugh.
Depression over holidays is understandable but not inevitable. Those who have the heart to celebrate will celebrate. They’ll bow their heads in prayerful gratitude, mindful of the blessings they have received, rather than those they haven’t at the end of the day, they’ll feel good because they chose to have a good day. We’ll get what we choose, too.
How I handle holidays is a test of emotional maturity.
November 25 He who would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
Building self-esteem is terribly difficult for hotheads, fanatics, and crybabies. It’s precision work. Artistic work. The object is to develop control over our self-talk, inner judgments, and the outlandish expectations we so readily place on ourselves. The art of maintaining one’s own respect and friendship requires a certain independence from outside influences. But this is impossible if we can’t control our own passions.
Of course, we shouldn’t grip our control levers so tightly that we can’t tolerate spontaneity of some mistakes. But we musn’t be “owned” by anger, jealousy, or fear either. Passion and reason can’t both sit in the driver’s seat.
Dedication to building a reasoned, balanced life takes a cool head. Positive self-esteem cannot abide in the same house with raging, out-of-control anger, or the neurotic fear that others are getting ahead at our expense, or the frantic greediness that passes for “being good to ourselves.” The inner balance between thinking and feeling has to be the first goal, the first step.
My passions are good servants but bad masters.
November 26 Practice is nine-tenths.
When we expect too much to fast even a good result will seem like too little too late. Because the something we achieved wasn’t everything, we got frustrated. And then we quit. Not because our effort wasn’t working, but because we badly underestimated how much effort the job was going to take.
Frustration is always relative to expectation. We don’t expect to play professional-level golf after a few months of lessons. Nor do we imagine that our early tries at oil painting will produce perfect portraits. But somehow we do think that self-improvement should be a whole lot easier and quicker than it is. Thus the frustration.
Years ago, a memorable piece of film was aired on TV. It showed Nadia Comaneci practicing gymnastics. She fell off the balance beam. Then the same thing happened again and again and again. At first it looked like one fall was being endlessly replayed. But then it became apparent that this film was a chronicle of many failed attempts, one after the other. Later that year she won a gold medal in the Olympics, scoring a perfect ten. That couldn’t have happened if she hadn’t persistently practiced. Achievement takes what it takes.
Breaking old habits may well be harder work than breaking athletic records.
November 27 The first of earthly blessings, independence.
Cutting the cord between parent and adult child used to be a natural, painless, and taken-for-granted process. Now, however, it is commonplace for grown children to be emotionally and economically dependent far into their twenties or even their thirties. Some bounce in and out of the family home as casually as if they were coming and going from student holidays. Some never leave the nest at all.
Whatever the reasons for these drawn-out dependencies, the result can be a terrible toll on self-esteem. Because self-respect is largely built on self-sufficiency, both the supporters and the supported lose face with themselves as independence is delayed. In their heart of hearts, most parents know that too much help can handicap grown children just as surely as too little help can stunt the growth of young children. And grown children know, down deep, that they would feel better about themselves if they stood on their own two feet, no matter how shakily.
Self-reliance is the widest plank in the platform of self-esteem. Those of us who cushion our adult children’s every fall need to recognize that our “helpfulness” is actually fostering helplessness. Those of us who “go home” when the going gets tough need to think about the crippling consequences of prolonging the dependencies of childhood.
My self-sufficiency is the backbone of self-respect.
November 28 Hatred is a feeling which leads to the extinction of values.
Hatred is taboo to most moral people. That’s why we consciously try to keep our distance from whatever or whoever it is we hate. But unconsciously, it’s impossible to avoid what we truly hate. The very act of hating is too riveting.
Hate is a hook. What we hate we tend on some level to obsess about, ruminate over, and plot against. Worst of all, and perhaps most mysteriously, hate has the power of metamorphosis; it can actually transform us into the object of our hatred. People who hate the deprivations of their childhood, for example, very often become the depriving parents they despised. Hatred of some prejudice creates its own prejudice. Vigilantes become violent, teetotalers become drunk with power.
Campaigners against any evil need to guard against becoming evildoers themselves. It is too easy to become what we hate. Healing self-esteem often means bringing runaway hatred under control
The trouble with hatred is that it doesn’t recognize boundaries.
November 29 To say the right thing at the right time, keep still most of the time.
Some truths are more difficult to communicate than others. We may know very well that we badly need to take a stand, clarify a long-term misunderstanding, or share a vital new insight with someone close to us. Perhaps our very self-esteem hinges on communicating this difficult-to-express truth. But precisely because the message is so difficult, we may not be able to deliver it right now. We may simply not be ready.
Working on readiness is not the same thing as backing off or caving in. Rather than garble the message and thereby ensure misunderstanding, isn’t it better to be still until we can be clear? Isn’t it wiser to take smaller, intermediate steps before we take a giant leap? If a task is too big for us today, there is great wisdom in setting out on a course of action that will get us ready to do it tomorrow.
Communicating a difficult truth to a certain someone must often be prepared for by talking to someone else. If we need to take a stand with our mate, we can practice on a trusted friend. If we need to raise the awareness of an Adult Child, we can say the sentences we need to say to our mate. We can rehearse our lines in the shower or in the car. With enough practice, we can be confident that we will have the wisdom, words, and courage to say what needs to be said to the person who needs to hear it.
Like all other skills, assertiveness is developed by practice, practice and practice.
November 30 Truth telling is not compatible with the defense of the realm.
Healthy self-esteem grows from self-acceptance based on self-knowledge. That’s why it’s so important to tell ourselves the truth and get our facts straight. If our self-knowledge is spotty or inaccurate, the very basis of our self-esteem is threatened.
Self-knowledge is gained by degrees. Many of us worked hard, for example, to own up to the hurt in our lives. For years we said, “It’s fine,” “It doesn’t matter,” or “I’m okay, let’s talk about you.” We had to struggle to say, “That bothered me a lot,” “My feelings were hurt,” or “I decided not to put myself into that situation again.” That’s progress!
But even then we may be “defending the realm” of the fearful ego. Acknowledging pain and acknowledging the depth of the pain are not the same. It is one thing to admit hurt and another to admit a broken heart. It is one thing to say, “I don’t like this,” and another to say, “I feel like dying.” Minimizing our pain is better than denying it. But self-knowledge constructed of half-truths will always be spotty.
To be honest about the depth of the hurt is the only real honesty.
The enormous success of the first Rocky movie surprised the experts. They saw it as just another low-budget boxing story. Little did they guess it would win so many awards and capture the imagination of millions all over the world.
The experts didn’t foresee that the story was really about us. They didn’t recognize that the magic of the Rocky character was in his very ordinariness. Rocky was “just a guy,” after all, an unlikely, unpromising unknown who didn’t look one bit different than any other young punk on the street. But viewers saw that immediately and they identified with it. When Rocky dared to buck the odds, to come roaring out of nowhere, and shoot for the top, they identified with that, too. Rocky’s success was ours; if Rocky can do it, maybe I can, too.
Real life is not lived on the silver screen, of course. But even movie messages may deliver important truths that can inspire our real lives. The central truth of the Rocky phenomenon is that passion and dedication can move mountains. However humble our beginnings, if we have “fire in the belly,” those who bet against us will have a big surprise coming.
Desire and discipline can overcome impossible odds.
November 2 One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.
One way to avoid hurt in this world is to kill all feelings. Another is to see nothing: withdraw, close up like a deep-water clam does when it senses a threat. Then everything that swims by is put off by that impenetrable shell.
Unlike clams, however, we cannot hide in a defensive shell without damaging ourselves. There’s no way around it. If we take a good look at what’s going on in the world, and try to be responsive to it, there will be sadness. At this stage of human evolution there is much to be sad about.
Compassion has a price. If we choose to care, we must first choose to grow in maturity. We must learn to acknowledge all that is painful in this world, all the human failing--without being consumed by it. As real and distressing as all the sad things are, they are not the totality of human experience. Just as our compassion is not the totality of who we are. We need always to recognize the existence of what is good as well as what is not.
As I seek truth, I will find enough good to keep me going.
November 3 Self-help must precede help from others. Even for making certain of help from heaven, one has to help oneself.
When all is said and done, we are responsible for what happens to our lives. Not that we can control circumstances, but the ultimate decisions as to attitude, acceptance, and behavior are in our hands. Other people may give us our start, but our finish is up to us.
Sonny’s self-esteem was taking a beating because of his many failed relationships with women. Again and again, this sweet, good-looking man had been certain that “this was it.” Then, mysteriously to him, the woman backed out, called it off. Until he got professional help, Sonny didn’t realize that he was subconsciously restaging the drama of his mother’s rejection. At forty-one, he was still looking to the woman in his life for the unconditional acceptance and approval that he had been denied so many years ago. Not so mysteriously, his women friends decided to look for partners who were perhaps less sweet, but certainly less needy.
Over time, Sonny learned that he had been unrealistic and unfair in his relationships. By letting go of the past, he reclaimed his power to function in the present—as a man rather than a boy. At last he took his self-esteem out of his mother’s hands. As must we.
Until I leave “what was” behind me, I will keep reliving it.
November 4 To cope effectively with problems or to rise triumphantly to challenges may require courage, patience, sustained energy, and imagination, but it also requires something even more basic: realism.
Self-esteem is based on truth. Before it is the cause of good, it is the result of our ability to accept the truth about ourselves. Knowledge of our real selves is what we’re after—not the puffed-up or shrunken images that come and go with good days and bad days. The core self standing naked before a mirror is the one we must come to terms with.
Lack of realism is a powerful enemy of positive self-esteem. If the truth is that we always hated school, it isn’t likely that we’re going to become college professors. If we’re 100 pounds overweight, prospects are not great for a modeling career. Realistically, we need to focus on what can be, not what is impossible. We need to work with what we’ve got, not what we wish we had.
To live without realism is to live in a deluded world where self-esteem is impossible. We need to be honest with ourselves about our limits. Circumstances such as age or health may impose limits that weren’t there yesterday. So be it. It’s today and who we are today that counts. When we match our dreams to our nakedness, we’re on our way.
Bucking reality is a fool’s game that always ends in defeat.
November 5 Fare thee well for I must leave thee, do not let this parting grieve thee. Just remember that the best of friends must part.
By far the most difficult decisions are of the “letting go” variety. That’s no surprise when we consider how hard it is to get rid of a trusty old car or a ragged, but favorite, old sweater. They’ve been around for a long time, they’re comfortable, and we remember them as they once were. How much more we dread the loss of a sour relationship that once was sweet!
But there are times when we can’t go forward until we say good-bye to what’s behind us. When our best efforts can’t make a relationship work, that relationship is over. We owe it to ourselves and to the other person to make a clean break. Painful as parting is, self-esteem demands that we find the honesty and courage to get on with our lives.
No matter what we tell ourselves, we’re not doing the person a favor when we stall and postpone a necessary farewell. It’s our own pain and guilt that makes us drag our feet. Cowardice isn’t kindness. Kindness is giving the other person the same chance for happiness that we want for ourselves.
Procrastination doubles the pain of parting.
November 6 The world is sown good: but unless I turn my glad thoughts into practical living and till my own field, I cannot reap a kernel of the good. Helen Keller
Sometimes, when we’re trudging the road of self-renewal, we get a free ride when we least expect it. It may be a dazzling insight, a rocketlike boost of emotion, or a profoundly deep faith experience. Maybe it comes while we’re reading or walking down the street or just falling asleep. But whenever or wherever they happen, these unexpected peak experiences are marvels that we should treasure.
But we should also recognize that no moment of bliss, no lightning bolt of absolute certainty, can last forever. A peak experience is more of an indication of what can be than a stable state of being.
As it was and always will be, after the experience comes the work. The freebies that come to us are meant to be appreciated, remembered, and then used as a shining star by which we plot our course. Trudging isn’t thrilling, but it’s the only known road to lasting change.
No one gets a steady diet of peak experiences.
November 7 Responsibility (n): A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, fate, fortune, luck, or ones’s neighbor.
Blaming never healed a wound. Making excuses never made an improvement. It is one thing to recognize that there are reasons we may find ourselves in a self-esteem slump. But it is another thing entirely to take responsibility for pulling ourselves out of it.
After the fact, what difference do the whos and whys really make? If our toes have been run over, it’s our flat toes we have to worry about—not what kind of vehicle it was or whether the driver had a license. Why were we standing in the street? That’s the worthwhile kind of question that can do us some good: What’s the “me factor” in the problem?
Much of my difficulty is created by something in me--a thought pattern, an ingrained habit, a perception of myself. I am my biggest burden and most difficult problem. “They” are not responsible for what happens to me. I am responsible. I have the power.
Hope and power abound when I take responsibility for myself in the here and now.
November 8 Happiness: I have earned it. I am taking it.
Most of us would say we want happiness more than anything in life. Strange, then, isn’t it, that we have so many ways to postpone it, block it, even break its grip if it reaches out to hug us. Why do we do that?
The low self-esteem that prohibits happiness is often caused by shame. For very deep, subjective reasons, we have decided, or accepted someone else’s decision, that we don’t deserve happiness or success. “People like us” somehow shouldn’t expect to be happy. The self-image that ties into “people like us” may have to do with our nationality or religion or race. It may have to do with the neighborhood we came from, or the fact that we never had much money. Whatever the negative, limiting identity, the fact is that it hobbles our pursuit of happiness just as surely as if our feet were roped together.
“People like us” who are sincerely learning and growing, have every right to be happy. We don’t need the guilt and shame that have woven themselves into such a heavy, leaden overcoat. No one can make us wear it if we decide we’re not going to anymore. And no one but ourselves can keep us from satisfying the deepest desire of the human heart.
“People like us” deserve all the happiness we can get.
November 9 An agreeable companion on a journey is as good as a carriage.
Everywhere we go we find good apples and bad apples. There are negative people who for many reasons walk a low road themselves and invite us to travel the same path. Because they don’t expect clear weather or good road conditions, they never find them. Chuckholes are what they know and chuckholes are what they get. As long as we walk with them, we travel under the same conditions.
There are also positive people, who for equally varied reasons, have chosen to walk the high road. They, too, find pretty much what they expect to find as they mosey along. Mostly they get sunny days, straight routes, and interesting experiences along the way. They don’t expect to run into problems they can’t handle, so for the most part they don’t. Walking in their company gives us the same kind of trip.
We can join either caravan we want to. As long as we’re alive we’re traveling one road or the other. Shall we define the journey in terms of sprained ankles and lost luggage, or in terms of progress and adventure? The choice would seem not too hard to make.
The quality of my journey is largely defined by the quality of my companions.
November 10 Of all the passions, fear weakens judgment most.
Fear is a terrible obstacle to healthy self-esteem. Our fear of everything from failure to success to rejection leads us first to a mental shutdown and then to paralysis. Stagnation results. And in that dead pool of stagnation, self-esteem drowns.
Fear has been explained as F-alse E-vidence A-ppearing R-eal. Although there certainly are many legitimate things to be afraid of, much of the fear that handicaps self-esteem is false. False in the sense that what once was real, no longer is. In the past, it may have been true that others abused us, denied us our rights, or coldly ignored us. But that happened in childhood, when we had no choice.
What’s true in the here and now may be that those old feelings, perceptions and boundaries are no longer relevant. Today, they are false in the sense that we have outgrown their power. As we make our own choices about how we want to live and who we want to believe, a whole new world opens up to us. Fear is slavery. Overcoming fear is freedom—and the very wings of the sweet bird of self-esteem.
Yesterday’s threats can’t touch us today.
November 11 All seems infected to the infected spy, as all looks yellow to jaundiced eye.
It can be infuriating to hear someone say that a very obvious, concrete issue we’re struggling with is an “attitude problem.” When we’re pounding away at some unyielding difficulty, the last thing we want to hear is, “It’s all in your head.” Such comments make us feel that our intelligence, not to mention our sanity, is being discounted. We resent the oversimplification of what seems to us a very complex dilemma.
The truth may well be that our problem is as real and as hard to crack as a slab of marble. Yet it may also be true that some attitude we’re bringing to the problem is wearing us out more than the problem is! After all, our attitudes define our problems in the first place. Attitudes are the tinted glass through which we see our problems. So, of course, our attitudes always precede our actions; they get there first.
A creative attitude transform many setbacks and disappointments into learning experiences. A receptive, sensitive attitude lifts the cloak of everydayness off many beautiful sights and amusing events. An independent attitude can spin the straw of loneliness into golden solitude. A roll-up-the-sleeves, can-do attitude is the best problem solver there is.
The power of my attitudes is greater than the power of my problems.
November 12 To the man whose senses are alive and alert, there is not even the need to stir from his threshold.
Low self-esteem is often associated with boredom. When nothing seems interesting or worth doing, we can lose interest in our own lives. Thus our hunger for excitement and entertainment. Often, when we feel empty inside, we direct our search for meaning outward. We look outside ourselves to find something to distract us from the monotony of the everyday.
Maybe it takes us a while, maybe it even happens by accident, but sooner or later we discover that our own minds can be a veritable entertainment factory! When we learn to tap in to our own creativity, our own ideas and musings can give us endless enjoyment. Who can be bored when there are so many interesting things to think about?
Who is the greatest person who ever lived? Why? What would be the best possible vacation? Why? What is the highest possible goal that I could realistically reach in the next year? What would it take to get started? What is my best quality? How can I showcase that quality? If I had three wishes, what would they be? What one thing would I change about the world if I could? What most needs to be done? There’s no limit to the things I can think about.
My ability to wonder and think is a reliable source of pleasure.
November 13 Nothing is more fatal to health than an over care of it. Benjamin Franklin
Modern health care has come a long way. Rather than focusing exclusively on illness, many enlightened practitioners now encourage patients to focus on wellness, instead. By emphasizing the health of the whole, they are better able to deal with the dysfunctional part. The switch in emphasis makes a profound difference; much like the difference between studying peace and studying war.
Mental and emotional health can be approached in the same way. When we’re only interested in what’s wrong, that’s all we’ll find when we go searching for self-knowledge. And what is self-esteem but a positive picture of ourselves? We can actually cause ourselves self-esteem problems by dwelling on the various scars and bruises that life has given us. As if we’re nothing more than the sum total of our injuries.
We are far more whole and healthy than we are sick. Of course, it’s important to know what’s wrong and get busy fixing it. But we should never, never define ourselves by our wounds. To do so is to discount our true value and to disclaim the many benefits of health and happiness.
By focusing on wellness, I give self-esteem a chance to heal.
November 14 There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. William Shakespeare
Assumptions are risky in every area of life. Because self-image so heavily depends on what other people reflect back to us, our assumptions in this area can be especially dangerous.
We may be hurt because someone snubbed us—but a whole different story often submerges when we check it out. Perhaps the person was preoccupied with a concern of his own, or may just have been tired. Or suppose we assume that someone doesn’t approve of what we are doing. It isn’t unusual to find out later that she didn’t even know what we were doing. Or didn’t care.
Wearing our self-esteem on our sleeve makes us very vulnerable. If we take people’s mistakes or honest disagreements as a personal affront, we turn our spiritual path into a mine field. We need to think twice before we assume once. We need to stop creating misunderstanding and start taking responsibility for our own thin skin.
Assumptions are not facts.
November 15 The really heroic people are not those who travel 10,000 miles by dog sled, but those who stay 10,000 days in one place.
When we hear someone shout, “Fire!” we’d better run. When we hear someone yell, “Twister!” we quickly look for cover. One of the first things we learn is to get out of the way when we see trouble or danger bearing down on us.
Many times running is perfectly appropriate. A quick response has often saved lives and limbs. But at other times, running away is the worst possible thing we can do. There are situations, in fact, when self-respect goes out the window if we go out the door. Unless we stand fast and face these situations, we leave too much of us behind.
Those who fear intimacy get itchy feet when a loving someone gets too close. Those who fear success can think of a thousand reasons to close down a promising operation and move on to something else. Those who fear failure hop from one idea to another without making a commitment to any. In all of these situations, our feelings of fear are telling us to quit before we’re hurt. But reason tells us that quitting is hurting and that self-esteem means hanging tough.
Sometimes, devastation can only be avoided by staying put.
November 16 Sometimes I think, the things we see are shadows of the things to be; that what we plan, we build.
Oh, the delight in making plans! Indeed, high-flying plans that never come to fruition can become exercises in frustration. They can knock down our self-esteem instead of building it up. But legitimate plan making is a victory in itself. Just honestly sitting down and starting to set out goals that translate into concrete, doable steps does much to convince us that we can accomplish something. And realizing what we can do is what positive self-esteem is all about. Making realistic plans is an achievement in itself.
We, and our self-esteem along with us, get bogged down when we don’t see the light at the end of some tunnel or another. Perhaps we are stuck in a bad job, or a bad relationship or a negative state of mind. Plans are what get us unstuck. We can’t make a plan without thinking out the steps we must take to get moving in a more positive direction.
What are the steps? Maybe the first step is just to encourage ourselves to think about it. When we tell ourselves that we have options, that we most certainly can do something about our lives, we are not victims.
When I make a plan, I put management back in my life.
November 17 Discern of the coming on of years, and think not to do the same things still; for age will not be defied.
As we reach our middle years, denial and delusion roll out a red carpet leading us back toward youth. “Turn around now!” these great pretenders tell us, “Reverse the aging process and you can outwit old Father Time!” To pull off this trick we’re advised to try everything from starvation to surgery. Sometimes we cripple ourselves with near-violent exercise and vigorous nightlife-all in the hope of thinking and looking and feeling like the young people we no longer are!
Why do we allow ourselves to be hustled into such a vain pursuit? Was the first half of life such a series of delights that anything beyond it must be less? What are we trying to prove by trying to stop, or even turn back, nature’s clock? Are we trying to fool other people or ourselves? And why are we trying to fool anybody?
Of course, we should do everything we can to maintain our health and a positive, upbeat outlook. But all the artful manipulation in the world doesn’t slow the aging process. At best, it keeps it from showing quite so quickly. The important question isn’t whether or not we should get a hairpiece or a tummy tuck. It’s much more important to know why we want to go to so much trouble to be what we aren’t.
At midlife, I have many more interesting things to do than fight wrinkles.
November 18 Names are but noise and smoke, obscuring heavenly light.
To ask, “Who am I?” is much like asking, “What is reality?” The answer can be a complex exercise in mental gymnastics. On the other hand, because so much of our self-esteem depends on how we define ourselves, the question is an important one that can lead to major growth.
Often an off-the-top-of-the-head answer reveals that we tend to base our identity on what we do. “I’ve always said I was ‘Loren the truck driver,’“ a man told his support group. “Now I’m learning to say, ‘I’m Loren and I happen to drive a truck.’“ Loren is on his way because he knows that he is other than, more than, what he does for a living.
What we do can be taken away. It can change as a result of age, accident, or just plain fate. If our identity is based on that, we are building the castle of our self-esteem on sand. Who we are is a deeper and broader reality than where we go to work or what we do when we get there. Doing contributes to being-but being is the point of the exercise.
My identity doesn’t begin and end with my occupation.
November 19 The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
As embarrassing as it may be to have to line up with the “fools,” most of us have more than a little expertise at procrastination. Of course, we know better. We know that avoiding something that we have to do makes us die a thousand times before we finally act and get relief. And we also know how ashamed we feel when we repeatedly cut and run.
Now that we’re working on our self-esteem, we need to take a serious look at behaviors that shame us. The next time a major decision comes up-should I leave or stay? Speak up or stuff it again? Start a recovery program or put it off one more time”-we need to remember what not deciding does to our self-esteem.
The issue that demands decision will not let us rest in peace until we act on it. The shame that squashes our self-esteem will keep building up, layer upon layer, until we finally do what we have to do. How much better to summon the courage we need today, not six months from now, and simply get it over with. We’ve surely spent enough time hanging out with the fools.
The sooner the better is the only way for recovering procrastinators.
November 20 A decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free.
When faced with a difficult decision, we have an unfortunate tendency to focus on the “before” rather than the “after.” The prize the decision will win for us seems shadowy and vague, while the pain of making the decision is just as real and immediate as a screaming toothache!
New life has never come into this world without labor. We need to remember this the next time a painful decision must be made. Certainly it will be wrenching to give up an addiction of one kind or another-but think of the freedom we’re gaining! If we decide to go back to church or school, we’ll probably feel awkward and out of place for a while, but soon we’ll be full-fledged members of a new community.
Deciding to try anything new may conjure up feelings of fear and self-pity. But self-confidence waits on just the other side of the door. Sometimes we have to take a mighty leap just to keep going forward.
The labor of birth is soon forgotten in the joy of new life.
November 21 History is the record of an encounter between character and circumstance.
The history of the world is a terrible and wonderful story of the contest between people and their circumstances. From the invention of the wheel to the splitting of the atom, the human race has struggled to do, to be, to leave its mark from one generation to the next. Through revolutions and wars, inventions and discoveries, the choices that people made told the story. Dishonorable, cowardly decisions invariably have led us to corruption and destruction. Honorable, visionary decisions have led us to creation and advancement.
The course of our own, personal histories is much the same. Each life is a struggle between the opposing forces of deterioration and creativity, hope and despair, vision or blindness. Chapter by chapter, we make the choices. Because this is our own story, we are both the bad guys and the good guys. So what will it be-Attila the Hun or Charlemagne the Wise? Hitler? Gandhi? The death dealer or the peacemaker? We decide.
Everyday circumstances await the content of character to determine if this moment will be a golden renaissance or a dark age. Choosing is our privilege as well as our responsibility. Whether we want it or not, the pen is in our hand.
My self-esteem rides on the rules I assign myself.
November 22 God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road.
If we could see into the future, we’d save ourselves from more than a few dead ends and stubbed toes, wouldn’t we? Just a quick peek is all we’d need. Then we could make mistake-proof judgments about what’s worth working at and worrying about. We wouldn’t have to stretch and strain so much because we’d already know what was going to work out and what wasn’t.
Ah, but there’s the rub. Nothing of value comes to be without stretching and straining. It is not knowing that keeps us going and growing. It’s the very uncertainty of the search, the challenge flung in the face of doubt, that builds character and integrity. The patience we bring to the process is what builds self-esteem.
An easier life is not always a better life. Fat cats have little muscle-and muscle is what gets us down the road. The fact that we’re left to our own devices, our own path finding, means that we’re free to create our own fortress.
A thoroughly mapped-out, predictable life wouldn’t be very lively.
November 23 The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
At first glance, the statement above seems absurd. What could be wrong with a father wanting his children to be a credit to him? The point, however, is the difference of emphasis. Is it more important for a child to be a credit to his parents-or to himself? How much deference does a child owe his parents? How much credit can a parent realistically expect?
Repairing our self-esteem often includes disentangling from our sense of guilt or failure over not measuring up to what we thought our parents wanted us to be. Even if that was not what we wanted to be-we may feel we let them down, that we weren’t a credit to them.
But what a child wants to do, within the boundaries of the good and healthy of course, may differ considerably from what the parents see as suitable. Even such minor considerations as hairstyles, choice of music, or church attendance can become major issues that deeply affect the self-esteem of both parent and child. Twice blessed is the parent who can say, “I love you, of course-but what really makes me happy is that you love you.”
The best parents know they succeed when they put themselves out of the job.
November 24 Holidays have no pity.
Some of us would rather face a month of Mondays than a single holiday. The worst are those, like Thanksgiving, that are supposed to deliver enough family warmth to carry us through the rest of the year. How shamed and resentful we feel when it seems that everyone else is going “over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house” while we’re eating a baloney sandwich in front of the TV.
The fact is that many of us do not have loving, welcoming families. We don’t want to go home for Thanksgiving. But that doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with us. We aren’t less worthy than people who come from healthier families. And it doesn’t mean that we have no reason to give thanks, either. The baloney is of our own choosing: we could pop a little turkey into the oven if we wanted to. Invite a friend. Talk and laugh.
Depression over holidays is understandable but not inevitable. Those who have the heart to celebrate will celebrate. They’ll bow their heads in prayerful gratitude, mindful of the blessings they have received, rather than those they haven’t at the end of the day, they’ll feel good because they chose to have a good day. We’ll get what we choose, too.
How I handle holidays is a test of emotional maturity.
November 25 He who would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
Building self-esteem is terribly difficult for hotheads, fanatics, and crybabies. It’s precision work. Artistic work. The object is to develop control over our self-talk, inner judgments, and the outlandish expectations we so readily place on ourselves. The art of maintaining one’s own respect and friendship requires a certain independence from outside influences. But this is impossible if we can’t control our own passions.
Of course, we shouldn’t grip our control levers so tightly that we can’t tolerate spontaneity of some mistakes. But we musn’t be “owned” by anger, jealousy, or fear either. Passion and reason can’t both sit in the driver’s seat.
Dedication to building a reasoned, balanced life takes a cool head. Positive self-esteem cannot abide in the same house with raging, out-of-control anger, or the neurotic fear that others are getting ahead at our expense, or the frantic greediness that passes for “being good to ourselves.” The inner balance between thinking and feeling has to be the first goal, the first step.
My passions are good servants but bad masters.
November 26 Practice is nine-tenths.
When we expect too much to fast even a good result will seem like too little too late. Because the something we achieved wasn’t everything, we got frustrated. And then we quit. Not because our effort wasn’t working, but because we badly underestimated how much effort the job was going to take.
Frustration is always relative to expectation. We don’t expect to play professional-level golf after a few months of lessons. Nor do we imagine that our early tries at oil painting will produce perfect portraits. But somehow we do think that self-improvement should be a whole lot easier and quicker than it is. Thus the frustration.
Years ago, a memorable piece of film was aired on TV. It showed Nadia Comaneci practicing gymnastics. She fell off the balance beam. Then the same thing happened again and again and again. At first it looked like one fall was being endlessly replayed. But then it became apparent that this film was a chronicle of many failed attempts, one after the other. Later that year she won a gold medal in the Olympics, scoring a perfect ten. That couldn’t have happened if she hadn’t persistently practiced. Achievement takes what it takes.
Breaking old habits may well be harder work than breaking athletic records.
November 27 The first of earthly blessings, independence.
Cutting the cord between parent and adult child used to be a natural, painless, and taken-for-granted process. Now, however, it is commonplace for grown children to be emotionally and economically dependent far into their twenties or even their thirties. Some bounce in and out of the family home as casually as if they were coming and going from student holidays. Some never leave the nest at all.
Whatever the reasons for these drawn-out dependencies, the result can be a terrible toll on self-esteem. Because self-respect is largely built on self-sufficiency, both the supporters and the supported lose face with themselves as independence is delayed. In their heart of hearts, most parents know that too much help can handicap grown children just as surely as too little help can stunt the growth of young children. And grown children know, down deep, that they would feel better about themselves if they stood on their own two feet, no matter how shakily.
Self-reliance is the widest plank in the platform of self-esteem. Those of us who cushion our adult children’s every fall need to recognize that our “helpfulness” is actually fostering helplessness. Those of us who “go home” when the going gets tough need to think about the crippling consequences of prolonging the dependencies of childhood.
My self-sufficiency is the backbone of self-respect.
November 28 Hatred is a feeling which leads to the extinction of values.
Hatred is taboo to most moral people. That’s why we consciously try to keep our distance from whatever or whoever it is we hate. But unconsciously, it’s impossible to avoid what we truly hate. The very act of hating is too riveting.
Hate is a hook. What we hate we tend on some level to obsess about, ruminate over, and plot against. Worst of all, and perhaps most mysteriously, hate has the power of metamorphosis; it can actually transform us into the object of our hatred. People who hate the deprivations of their childhood, for example, very often become the depriving parents they despised. Hatred of some prejudice creates its own prejudice. Vigilantes become violent, teetotalers become drunk with power.
Campaigners against any evil need to guard against becoming evildoers themselves. It is too easy to become what we hate. Healing self-esteem often means bringing runaway hatred under control
The trouble with hatred is that it doesn’t recognize boundaries.
November 29 To say the right thing at the right time, keep still most of the time.
Some truths are more difficult to communicate than others. We may know very well that we badly need to take a stand, clarify a long-term misunderstanding, or share a vital new insight with someone close to us. Perhaps our very self-esteem hinges on communicating this difficult-to-express truth. But precisely because the message is so difficult, we may not be able to deliver it right now. We may simply not be ready.
Working on readiness is not the same thing as backing off or caving in. Rather than garble the message and thereby ensure misunderstanding, isn’t it better to be still until we can be clear? Isn’t it wiser to take smaller, intermediate steps before we take a giant leap? If a task is too big for us today, there is great wisdom in setting out on a course of action that will get us ready to do it tomorrow.
Communicating a difficult truth to a certain someone must often be prepared for by talking to someone else. If we need to take a stand with our mate, we can practice on a trusted friend. If we need to raise the awareness of an Adult Child, we can say the sentences we need to say to our mate. We can rehearse our lines in the shower or in the car. With enough practice, we can be confident that we will have the wisdom, words, and courage to say what needs to be said to the person who needs to hear it.
Like all other skills, assertiveness is developed by practice, practice and practice.
November 30 Truth telling is not compatible with the defense of the realm.
Healthy self-esteem grows from self-acceptance based on self-knowledge. That’s why it’s so important to tell ourselves the truth and get our facts straight. If our self-knowledge is spotty or inaccurate, the very basis of our self-esteem is threatened.
Self-knowledge is gained by degrees. Many of us worked hard, for example, to own up to the hurt in our lives. For years we said, “It’s fine,” “It doesn’t matter,” or “I’m okay, let’s talk about you.” We had to struggle to say, “That bothered me a lot,” “My feelings were hurt,” or “I decided not to put myself into that situation again.” That’s progress!
But even then we may be “defending the realm” of the fearful ego. Acknowledging pain and acknowledging the depth of the pain are not the same. It is one thing to admit hurt and another to admit a broken heart. It is one thing to say, “I don’t like this,” and another to say, “I feel like dying.” Minimizing our pain is better than denying it. But self-knowledge constructed of half-truths will always be spotty.
To be honest about the depth of the hurt is the only real honesty.
