September 1 Honesty, without compassion and understanding, is not honesty, but subtle hostility.
Dr. Rose N. Franzblau
In their attempts to rebuild self, recovering people can sometimes be cruel. Those who identify themselves as recovering Adult Children may be the worst offenders. This is because so much of our program requires that we get in touch with old messages and old feelings. As we look back, we often see that there was abuse in our past. We come to realize that some people have done us serious wrongs.
In the name of recovery, we can be tempted to honestly unload on those who hurt us long ago. With the cleanest of consciences, we can force them to share some reality whether they want to or not. But if our honesty is not tempered with sensitivity, we can say things that, although true, may be terribly hurtful. We can be as abusive to them as they were to us-and all in the name of recovery!
Self-esteem can never be gained at someone else’s expense. There well may be truths that have to be shared. But it’s the sharing that heals, not the person who listens. If what we must say will make it difficult, if not impossible, to improve the relationship, we need to check our motives. Cruelty doesn’t redress cruelty. Wreaking revenge and recovering are opposite processes. If sharing means violating the law of love, we need to talk to someone else.
If the collection process does more harm than good, the debt is better canceled.
September 2 He who cannot rest, cannot work; He who cannot let go, cannot hold on; He who cannot find footing, cannot go forward. Harry Emerson Fosdick
There is a part of the human psyche that wants to get right along to the last step, to wrap things up. Sometimes before we barely get started, we want to jump to the conclusion. Happy endings are our favorite part of any project.
Yet behind every successful conclusion is a productive plan. Conclusions are consequences, and all consequences are caused-they’re the result of something that went before. We are wise when we take the time to see and understand what it takes to make a happy ending really happen.
There can be no productive work without rest, no holding on without letting go, no going forward without firm footing-even if finding that footing costs us some time and a few tumbles. Every step of the way is made possible by the step that preceded it. Satisfying conclusions come to be when we take all of the steps, one at a time, and stop sabotaging the project with shortcuts.
Self-esteem thrives on the satisfaction of a job well done.
September 3 Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics: It is addictive, give momentary pleasure, and separates the victim from reality. John Gardner
Fostering self-esteem means taking care of ourselves. Often we need to treat ourselves easy, give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, remind ourselves of how far we have come rather than how far we have to go. Yet there is a fine line between sympathizing with our own struggles and wallowing in self-pity.
Self-pity works against self-esteem because it binds us to reality. Self-pity wears a black veil over its downcast head. Because it never looks up, it sees only part of the picture. And it is only on the anvil of reality that we are able to hammer out something of value. We can’t work with what we can’t see.
We need to stay on duty, hammering away, making the sparks fly. As we do, we not only see what is tragic in our lives but what we can do about it. The difference between bad luck and bad judgment will become clearer. What is beyond our power to change will be separated from what we can very well change if we so choose. Self-pity, in its dark glasses, can’t see any of that.
My prospects are as real as my wounds.
September 4 It is by tiny steps that we ascend to the stars. Jack Leedstrom
Two years after a painful divorce, Jan decided it was time to pick up the pieces of her life. The first thing she did to renew her self-esteem was to start a modest savings program. Since childhood, Jan had an ongoing problem with financial irresponsibility. Not that she didn’t work hard and make a fair wage. But for some reason, probably buried deeply in family-of-origin issues, she could not and would not save a nickel.
Because she literally couldn’t save a nickel, she started by saving pennies. In an old peanut butter jar on a closet shelf, her program started. Over weeks, pennies led to nickels, nickels to dollars, and dollars to a brand new habit of fiscal stability.
Easy to look at a pathetic little jar and say, “Big deal! Pennies!” Yet it was a big deal because it was a first step, and any first step, no matter how small, is a legitimate cause for celebration.
It’s not the size of the step that counts, but the fact that I take it.
September 5 Worry is a time-waster and ulcer-maker. Gail Grenier Sweet
Recognizing that we have serious self-esteem issues to deal with may rock us back on our heels. It may take a bit of time to accept the situation and even a little longer to figure out what to do about it. Nothing wrong with that. At this point, the only wrong thing we can do is to worry about it.
Worry is a form of wheel spinning. It wastes energy that could better be used to solve the problem we’re worrying about. It wastes the time that could have been invested in the future. It wastes life because worry blankets every spark and flicker of joy. And without joy, what is there to live for?
Certainly we have genuine reasons for concern when we get honest with ourselves. Some of the tasks we face are far from easy, and we realize now that the stakes are too high to avoid them. But concern and worry are very different things. Worry is nonproductive and obsessive. Long after concern has done all it can, worry is still grinding away, wheels spinning in the sand.
Worry focuses on the things that I can’t change, rather than the things that I can do something about.
September 6 The example of good men is visible philosophy. English Proverb
Just as we do not live in a vacuum, untouched by others and touching no one, so too, our efforts to maintain positive self-esteem are not isolated or self-contained. No matter how common and ordinary we think we are, we influence others. In ways we never notice or intend, everything we do reaches out and touches someone. And as with all human contact, the effect can be positive or negative.
Just think of all the people who see us or hear us in the course of a day. As we try to think well of ourselves and act that way, as we commit to the behaviors that evaluate our self-esteem, we are constantly having an impact on the people around us. Who knows the battles going on within the walled-up hearts of a brother or sister next to us? Who knows what really lurks behind the happy facades our fellow human beings are willing to show us? Perhaps a world of hurt.
A smile, a word of encouragement, or a compliment may well be the spillover of our own efforts to help ourselves. Transformed, any good we do ourselves may become the golden key that opens a long-rusted door in someone else’s heart. We are more powerful people than we realize we are. What we do or fail to do is important to other people as well as ourselves.
Ordinary people often wield extraordinary influence.
September 7 A man was starving in Capri. He turned his eyes and looked at me. Edna Saint Vincent Millay
Some people are both blessed and burdened with extraordinary empathy and compassion. Because of early social training or perhaps even a bit of genetic code, they’re far more sensitive than most to other people’s distress. They’re quick to identify, understand, and vicariously “feel” the hardships and heartaches that less aware people don’t even notice.
Nobody knows how many hearts have been lightened, how many tears dried, by these tender, caring souls. But this capacity, whether it’s born or learned or both, is a lovely rose with thorns attached. The danger, of course, is in going too far, giving too much, developing a soft head to go with the soft heart.
Self-esteem soars when we honor our values. But our expectations of self must be grounded in reality. It isn’t possible to respond to every cry for help. To be effective over the long haul, compassionate works must be guided by discipline and wisdom. Even the best impulses don’t have a limitless bank of energy to draw on. If we want to have something to give tomorrow, we must learn to pace ourselves today.
Managing compassion takes as much thoughtful planning as managing any other powerful resource.
September 8 During his lifetime, an individual should devote his efforts to creating happiness and enjoy it. Ch` en Tu-hsiu
Happiness is not constant for anyone, but our capacity for it is. There is never a time in our lives when we cannot strive for happiness. Yet striving for happiness is a different proposition than wishing to be happy. Many of us have slipped into a passive role. We wait for happiness, we hope for it, we complain if we go too long without it, but we stop actively striving to be happy.
Yet to strive is to try. It is to consciously make plans and consistently keep to those plans in the pursuit of the desired goal. People who achieve any worthwhile goal are strivers. There’s no other way it could be. Excellence is but the polished face of practice.
So too, in the pursuit of self-esteem, we must learn to be steady strivers. We must get off the bench and do our daily readings, practice the positive word, avoid those people and places that would cast us down-all the step-by-step behaviors that ultimately result in our reaching the goal.
My happiness is a result, not a gift.
September 9 Courage is walking naked through a cannibal village. Sam Levenson
Nakedness before people eaters has to be the ultimate vulnerability, doesn’t it? The idea is so awful it would almost be funny-if it weren’t somehow familiar. Unfortunately, horror images of vulnerability are nothing new to many of us.
Our own “cannibal village” is any place we happen to be when we decide, for the sake of self-esteem, that it’s time to put our defenses down. Perhaps to win our freedom, we face the prospect of breaking an addiction to some substance or person. We know we’ll have to strip ourselves of delusion and denial, to let go of our protective covering, to get the job done. Maybe we have to stand up and sound off to an overbearing parent who has dogged our lives well into adulthood; talk about feeling vulnerable! Maybe the cannibals we fear are the real feelings we have to expose ourselves to for the first time; surely they’ll pick our bones!
We all have an especially dangerous place we want to avoid. We’ll go miles out of our way to walk around it, to make sure we’re not anywhere near there without a whole lot of protection. “Anything but that!” we say, “Anywhere but there!” But if going in there naked is what it takes, then that is what it takes.
My dangers diminish as my self-confidence increases.
September 10 Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened. Billy Graham
Courage is personal. All of us hammer it out-or don’t-in the privacy of our own souls. No one can be courageous for you anymore than you can be courageous for someone else. The buck stops with us.
Yet there is a communal element in all individual growth. When any of us takes a stand, a model has been created to inspire the rest of us. In ways we would never guess, our smallest brave efforts-which may not even be particularly successful-have results that reach beyond us. A single deed of ours may become the stone someone else uses to start building a new foundation.
All human words and deeds are something like radio transmitters. Vibrations and messages are going out from us constantly. We have no idea how many may be “tuned in,” but most of us have a far wider audience than we realize. A word spoken against bigotry, a refusal to use drugs, a willingness to keep on plodding against the odds—these are just a few of the courageous personal behaviors that radiate light into the darkness. Even though our intention isn’t, and shouldn’t be, to “wow” other people—it’s good to know that our personal sweat, as a side effect, might water somebody else’s garden.
Don’t look now—but someone is watching!
September 11 Habit is stronger than reason.--George Santayana
Loving or despising ourselves becomes habitual. And habits, as all living things, are in the business of staying alive. When habits are attacked they put up immediate, heroic defenses. All habits do this—the healthy as well as the not so healthy. Thus a habitual self-despiser who attempts radical change can expect plenty of resistance. There’s no other way it could be.
In the midst of our efforts to bolster self-image—if these efforts go against a long-held habit of self-defeat—all of a sudden we may find ourselves thinking, “I have a right to be any way I want to be,” or “This self-renewal stuff is all fantasy. I am what I am and will always be that way.”
Self-pity often rears its ugly head in defense of old habits. This ingrained spoiler may seductively tell us, “Poor me. I had it so bad growing up, I have an excuse for not trying,” or “I just wasn’t born with many gifts. Other people have a much easier time than I, so if I try to be better, I will only fail.” Old habits die hard. Resistance is to be expected, seen for what it is—and counterresisted.
Self-pity and despair are the bodyguards of long enthroned habits.
September 12 The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of in humanity. George Bernard Shaw
All of us remember hurtful times when we were snubbed or overlooked. Indifference can wound us as badly as hatred. How we handle those wounds is an accurate indication of how we handle our lives. Will those sore spots heal or fester, inspire or demoralize? Self-esteem decides.
Some fifty years ago a poor boy sat fishing with his cane pole on the banks of a river. Once in a while, a big fancy boat would go by filled with laughing, well-dressed people. But none ever stopped. No one ever asked that little boy if he’d like to take a ride. The boy couldn’t understand this. With child logic, he wondered why. After all, they had plenty of room, and they clearly saw him sitting there on the muddy bank. Some of them even waved. Why didn’t they ask him to come along?
Today that young fisherman of yesteryear has several large boats of his own. Every week he invites groups of people who don’t have access to such finery to join him on a nice, long boat ride. The pleasure he was denied he can now provide to others. And he never passes a boy on the riverbank without asking him if he’d like a ride.
Giving is sweet; giving what I didn’t get is even sweeter.
September 13 Beware no man more than thyself. Thomas Fuller
If we’re serious about reconditioning our attitudes and thus our self-perception, we want to stack the odds in our favor as much as possible. For one thing, we should stay away from naysayers, fools, fast talkers, seducers—or any others who would nail our shoes to the floor when we want to move forward. It is a wise person indeed who knows who and what to avoid.
Yet it is also wise to remember that we ourselves are both our own best friend and worst enemy. Bad companions or not, no one can force us to do anything without our consent. Every day may bring dozens of invitations to cynicism, negativity, self-pity, stinking thinking—but we can turn them, down. If we accept, however, we have only ourselves to blame. We opened the mail, after all; we picked up the phone.
Because of ignorance, jealousy, or fear, other people may throw rocks in our path. But in the final analysis, we are the ones with both the bad habits that need to be overcome and the power to overcome them. It is we, not anyone else, who hold the key to all that power.
I must be aware of the enemy within as well as the enemy without.
September 14 Beware of your expectations for they become your reality. Elita Darby
Safeguarding our valuables only makes sense. Our homes, our families, our reputations are precious beyond price. Perhaps no valuable, however, needs more careful safeguarding than the integrity of our thoughts. For our habitual thoughts become reality.
If we allow ourselves, no matter how subconsciously, to mindlessly assume that the world’s ways are predictable, fair, or controllable, than every knock that jostles us will be interpreted as a startling personal attack. We can easily see ourselves as victims of life, rather than as participants.
If, however, we make sure to keep a balanced grasp of reality, many of the inconveniences, slights, and absurdities of life will be seen as just that: life as it is. Many, perhaps most, of the things that happen are not necessarily pointed directly at us. When we expect life to be anything but what it is, we set ourselves up for unnecessary disappointment.
My vision of life as it should be is rarely the same as life as it is.
September 15 A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. George Bernard Shaw
The ability to admit our blunders and mistakes is not only gracious, it’s absolutely necessary if we want to hoist our self-esteem out of a ditch. Self-esteem can’t be rescued if false pride comes first. To defend a mistake only doubles its impact.
Yet low self-esteem impels us to hide behind walls of denial or delusion, to blame our mistakes on others, or to protest that they never happened at all. All of which doubles the delusion. The obvious fact, of course, is that no one is perfect. There is no one who never makes mistakes. The separation comes between people who profit from their mistakes and people who do not.
Most of what we learn comes from the mistakes we make. Wisdom, the deepest form of all knowledge, can only be gained by getting out there, getting knocked down, but then getting up and going on—stronger and smarter than we were before. If we are wrong, let us be quick to admit it and make a correction. The only really damaging error is the denial of error.
Honest admission takes the sting out of my mistakes.
September 16 It is sad not to be loved, but it is much sadder not to be able to love. Miguel de Unamuno
What could be more crushing than to be in love with someone who is either not in love with you, or who simply does not have the skills necessary for a healthy relationship? Either case is a self-esteem killer. No matter how you try to take care of yourself, or work your program, one-way love is a misery as long as it lasts.
It hurts to reach out to someone who won’t or can’t reach back. Even if we know the loved one’s chemical use or other unattended emotional impairment is the real reason behind the rejection-it’s still rejection and it still hurts. Even if we rightfully say, “It’s his problem,” it’s still our pain that we have to deal with.
Depending on the situation, what can and must be done varies greatly. What doesn’t vary is the sad fact that we can’t make somebody else love us, no matter how hard we try. No matter how many extra miles we’re willing to go, if the other won’t move an inch, the relationship won’t move an inch either. Until we can accept that and achieve some detachment, we’ll be stuck right where we are.
Others have survived doomed love relationships, and so can I.
September 17 Praise is the best diet for us, after all. Reverend Sydney Smith
As much as we yearn for it and suffer when we don’t get it, praise makes most of us uncomfortable. “Thanks,” we say, “but I should have finished it yesterday.” “Thanks, but I still have ten pounds to go.”
“Thanks, but the color is all wrong for me.” We’re almost as bad at accepting compliments as we are at accepting criticism!
It may be that we’re embarrassed by our need for recognition. Perhaps what makes us squirm is not the compliment itself-which may be long overdue and less enthusiastic than it should have been-but our fear of exposure. We’d die rather than let anyone know how badly we need to be singled out and appreciated. So we minimize and deflect words of praise as quickly as they are spoken; that way, we keep our “stroke hunger” to ourselves.
What we don’t realize is that everybody else is as hungry as we are. Inside each of us, although we be gray or bald, sits a shiny-faced first grader hoping to get a star pasted on his forehead. We all need applause-and we get far less of it than we deserve. As we learn to accept our own neediness, we’ll become less self-conscious about accepting praise.
The ability to gracefully accept a compliment is a sign of emotional maturity.
September 18 Half measures availed us nothing. Alcoholics Anonymous (the Big Book)
In launching any adventure there is a great deal of wisdom in not trying to do the impossible. We only defeat out efforts by burdening ourselves with expectations of doing something that is beyond our power at the present time.
The caution from the “bible” of AA applies not just to action, but to intent. The words half measures are also addressed to attitudes like “maybe” or “wouldn’t it be nice if” or “someday I’ll have to try that.” These half-way attitudes get halfway results, of course. When it comes to managing self-esteem or any other valuable asset, we can’t afford to end up with nothing.
We might not yet be ready or able to find another career-but the attitude that the change will come is what counts. Today we might not have the strength to confront an abusive situation-but the commitment to build that strength matters more. We might not be able to take a giant step at the present time-but the daily practice that strengthens and stretches our abilities guarantees that the day will come when the ability will be there. When we’re doing everything we can do, we’re making a full effort.
All-or-nothing thinking can also avail me nothing.
September 19 Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true. Demosthenes
People with great energy and enthusiasm can accomplish wonders. If they’re also intelligent and focused, the odds are even better that they’ll succeed at whatever they try. Unless they’re also dishonest.
A man named Alex was desperately in search of freedom from guilt and the serenity of positive self-esteem. In putting together a program of growth, he decided to go all out. There was nothing Alex wouldn’t try, no new behavior he wouldn’t initiate and practice doggedly. He read all the self-help material he could get his hands on. He kept a journal. He attended meetings every day. Yet for all of his efforts, he remained stuck in a swamp of guilt.
Alex had a drinking problem. Because his drinking was the true source of his nagging guilt, he wasn’t going to make any progress unless, in addition to his new program activities, he also stopped the addictive drinking. All the energetic “starts” in the world aren’t going to help Alex until he summons the courage to make that one, crucial “stop.” He’s only fooling himself by working so hard at what, for him, is the wrong job.
If success is the goal, first things must be done first.
September 20 When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable. Judith Martin
It only makes sense that we can’t mow down anybody else’s self-esteem without damaging our own at the same time. We need to remember that fact when it is our legitimate task to correct a child, an employee, or anybody else who falls under our authority. When the power balance between two people is unequal, insensitivity is all too easy.
Before we call out somebody’s shortcomings, it’s only decent to lead off the conversation with some acknowledgment of his or her good qualities. Any positive, sincere statement will do to cushion and make a context for the criticism that is to follow. Our goal, after all, is to help that person do better, no one does better after a bludgeoning.
Sensitive, constructive criticism creates a win-win situation. By beginning with praise, the person in charge helps the other person to maintain dignity and self-worth. When we enable others to save face, we demonstrate not only kindness but intelligence, not only generosity but maturity.
Criticism of others must be handled carefully, for my sake as well as theirs.
September 21 Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide. Napoleon I
There are psychological as well as dollars-and-cents reasons for using experts to advise us before we enter new ground. Scouts who have been there before help us minimize our risk. Consultants can help us decide whether we should get involved in the first place.
Yet in personal endeavors, like the quest for self-esteem, outside input has limited value. Ultimately, the build-up or tear-down decisions are ours and ours alone. Suppose, for example, that someone puts us down and somebody else compliments us for the very same quality. Who do we believe? Or say that we have to make a decision that will have a considerable impact on our self-esteem. We consult several wise people and get different advice from each one. Again, who do we believe?
Of course we’d rather share the responsibility and have someone else bear part of the load. Perhaps we’d even like someone else to decide for us. But then we would never know the joyful confidence that comes from learning to trust our own judgment.
I can use outside input to validate my reasoning, but I must decide for myself.
September 22 The distance from nothing to a little is ten thousand times more than from a little to the highest degree in this life. John Donne
All the “think big!” talk we hear from motivational speakers may actually be deflating when we consider how far we have to go. “Big, indeed,” we may mutter to ourselves as we try to muster the courage to take even one baby step in a chosen new direction.
But there’s nothing contradictory about thinking big and starting small. The small, realistic start, as a matter of fact, is the best indicator that real progress is in the works. The successes that undergird self-esteem don’t come all at once. Real progress is always achieved inch by inch, decision by decision, baby step by baby step. But, oh how important are those first few inches that take us from nowhere to somewhere!
It well may be that right now we don’t have the strength to overthrow some hated cycle of dependency. But the bottom line isn’t what’s happening right now. If we are making the small decisions and taking the small steps, we will have the strength to make our move when the time comes. It all adds up.
True progress takes time and patience.
September 23 Speaking is a beautiful folly: with that man dances over all things. Friedrich Nietzsche
Raising self-esteem is a matter of growth and all growth requires honesty. The opposite of honesty is delusion and denial; nothing real or helpful comes from those deceivers. A common method of tap-dancing around honesty is through intellectualization. When we throw up a smoke screen of words that few can understand or follow, or have enough interest to even care about, we create an escape route from accountability.
In all the readings, verbiage, and meetings associated with self-improvement, we who are inclined to intellectualization can find infinite places to hide. It’s easy to create a complicated maze of all the right words and phrases that leads to nowhere. At no point does the meaning of those words connect with life as we live it. When we find the buzzwords, we can lose the truth.
Clive recently got called on that in his support group meeting. After his usual twenty-minute display of fancy talk, a fellow group member said, “I don’t understand a thing you’ve said. You’re spinning your web again. Talk straight. Who are you? What is really going on with you? What do you want to do about it?” Clive was lucky enough to meet a real friend that night. Greater self-esteem became possible because someone challenged him to step out of the smoke screen.
Fancy words are a poor substitute for the plain truth.
September 24 Each new season grows from the leftovers from the past. That is the essence of change, and change is the basic law. Hal Borland
Coming to terms with ourselves and the world we live in is an ongoing negotiation. It’s not the kind of deal we can hammer out once and be done with. Circumstances change. We change. The tools and techniques that kept us humming ten years ago may be useless to the people we are today.
When the children were home, for example, we may have invested most of our prime interest and energy in them. Fixing their bikes, chaperoning their dances, sharing in their joys and sorrows, made us feel needed and useful. Now that they’re on their own, we need to find a new sense of purpose if this new stage of life is to be as happy and fulfilling as the last one was. Retirement from work presents us with the same challenge; to keep going forward, we need to retool.
Life transitions aren’t terrible unless we fight them. Once we may have based our self-esteem on being “last up” in a spelling bee; then we matured a little and moved on to something else. We renegotiated with reality. To stay healthy and happy, we must accept and work with that ongoing, lifelong process. Our task is as ever, to find new and deeper sources of satisfaction.
The building blocks of my self-esteem change as circumstances change.
September 25 If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western Civilization would presumably flunk it. Stanley Garn
Being called “dumb” is hard on our self-esteem. But accepting that insult is even worse. Who has the right to lay such labels on anyone else? There are many kinds of “smarts” that don’t show up in IQ tests or shine in the classroom. At best, the definition of intelligence is relative.
Many of us shore up our self-esteem by judging others according to our own specialized standards. The schoolteacher who snickers at her mechanic’s grammar probably doesn’t realize that her own mechanical ignorance makes the mechanic snicker. The artist who can’t do his own taxes may well feel superior to the tax preparer who would prefer a snapshot of his own dog to any of the artist’s works. The list goes on and on, around and around, all egos vying for an upper slot.
Obviously what shows us as less than brilliant on one scale of measurement may place us near the top of another. As the quote above suggests, how well would any of us fare if we were dropped in the Outback and had to come up with the insights and skills to excel there? We need to stop making phony, superficial comparisons to aggrandize ourselves. We need to stop putting down and writing off people as “dumb.” And never should we believe anyone who applies that label to us.
Only dumb people call other people “dumb.”
September 26 The optimist fell ten stories. At each window bar he shouted to his friends: “All right so far!” Anonymous
Easy to laugh at the plummeting “optimist,” but how many times have we ourselves been blindly hopeful about obviously hopeless situations? Have we not refused to look ahead simply because we didn’t want to see what was coming? Manufactured “reasons” by the dozens for a totally unreasonable course of action?
Most of us have had times in our lives when we let ourselves float along without thinking about where we were going. Perhaps we knew we were heading for a fall, but somehow we couldn’t or wouldn’t read the writing on the wall. Maybe we even congratulated ourselves, as the optimist did, for surviving second by second!
Then came the inevitable crash, the devastation, the brokenness. Only then did we realize we aren’t “surviving” when we’re hurtling downward. Instead, survival was the painful process of cleaning up the mess and mending our wounds. We learned the hard way that flying is a fantasy, floating is far from a free ride, and false optimism makes a poor parachute.
A positive attitude about a negative behavior makes for a negative result.
September 27 There came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites. Mark 12:42
The dictionary tell us that a mite is a small coin “worth very little.” The Bible says that two mites were the equivalent of a penny. By any reckoning, an offering of two mites is so close to nothing that it almost doesn’t count. What possible difference could it make whether you give it or not? Why bother if that’s the best you can do?
Jerry showed up at his Saturday morning support group meeting. Depressed as he was, out of work as he was, down on himself as he was, he showed up. He didn’t even have a quarter to throw into the coffee kitty, but he came anyways. “I’m so depressed I hardly feel I have a right to be here,” he told a friend who greeted him at the door. Jerry didn’t speak at that meeting and certainly didn’t dance out on his tiptoes, raring to go. But he did sit there and try to listen. It was the best he could do.
Like the widow in the Bible story, Jerry contributed more than all the others that day because he threw in everything he had-his presence. By simply having the courage to show up, he added immeasurably to the “treasury” of his group. Who knows how many others there, witnessing his refusal to quit, went away impressed and inspired? Who know that that single act of dogged determination wasn’t Jerry’s own turning point?
No positive action is too small to count.
September 28 Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he’s well dressed. There ain’t much credit in that. Charles Dickens
Of course, we smile back when fortune smiles on us first. During those times in our lives when everything comes up roses, we have no problem feeling good about ourselves. Why should we? The sun shines every day, everybody loves us, and we love them. When the living is easy, self-esteem is easy, too. But what happens when fickle fortune finds another friend? What happens when it rains on our “glad rags”?
As much as we bewail the effects of negative outside influences, positive outside influences, when we give them too much power, can also set us up for self-esteem trouble. After all, we can’t control either the sun or the rain. If we base our self-regard on happy coincidences or lucky breaks, how secure will we be when our luck runs out? No honeymoon lasts forever.
The roots of self-esteem have to be deep enough to carry us through the bad weather that plagues so many of our days. That means that our health must depend more on what’s going on inside than what’s going on outside. Self-esteem is a gift from us to us. Fortunate circumstances can give us a boost, but it’s we ourselves who must make the climb.
The core of my self-esteem is not dependent on outside circumstances.
September 29 He played five aces. Now he plays the harp. Tombstone, Boot Hill, Arizona
Humor is a little-mentioned aspect of self-esteem. We have so many serious matters to consider, humor often falls in the “nice if you can get around to it” category.
Yet much self-esteem is lost by concentrating on the pathological aspects of our lives. We get so intent on what is wrong with self, the world, and everything in the world, that we get depressed Humor is an effective antidote to all that toxic input.
Self-improvement implies self-knowledge that can only be gained by poking and prodding around tender sore spots. But life was not meant to be one long anatomy class. The whole purpose of self-improvement is to get to a better place-and that’s not an operating room or a morgue. Tears and laughter are both expressions of reality. If we don’t find much to laugh about, we’re flying with one wing.
To “lighten up” doesn’t mean to lapse into silliness; it means to see the light.
September 30 Industry is a better horse to ride than genius. Walter Lippmann
How wonderful it would be to have genius abilities! We could solve problems without effort, or paint masterpieces as easily as a child scribbles in a tablet. Maybe we could even find a cure for cancer. How our self-esteem would soar if we could do such marvelous things!
Perhaps. Genius is a gift. Like all true gifts it is neither earned nor deserved, but given randomly. Genius misused or not used at all profits the recipient little. Many a genius, in fact, has led a miserable life.
Prudence tells us we would do better to rely on industry and hard work. Even if the dues are calluses and mistakes, it is the learning and the doing that make something of value, that make of us something of value. What we acquire through industry we value in proportion to our effort in the accomplishment. And that value is what gives us respect for ourselves.
My ability to do skillful work is an important component of my self-esteem.
Dr. Rose N. Franzblau
In their attempts to rebuild self, recovering people can sometimes be cruel. Those who identify themselves as recovering Adult Children may be the worst offenders. This is because so much of our program requires that we get in touch with old messages and old feelings. As we look back, we often see that there was abuse in our past. We come to realize that some people have done us serious wrongs.
In the name of recovery, we can be tempted to honestly unload on those who hurt us long ago. With the cleanest of consciences, we can force them to share some reality whether they want to or not. But if our honesty is not tempered with sensitivity, we can say things that, although true, may be terribly hurtful. We can be as abusive to them as they were to us-and all in the name of recovery!
Self-esteem can never be gained at someone else’s expense. There well may be truths that have to be shared. But it’s the sharing that heals, not the person who listens. If what we must say will make it difficult, if not impossible, to improve the relationship, we need to check our motives. Cruelty doesn’t redress cruelty. Wreaking revenge and recovering are opposite processes. If sharing means violating the law of love, we need to talk to someone else.
If the collection process does more harm than good, the debt is better canceled.
September 2 He who cannot rest, cannot work; He who cannot let go, cannot hold on; He who cannot find footing, cannot go forward. Harry Emerson Fosdick
There is a part of the human psyche that wants to get right along to the last step, to wrap things up. Sometimes before we barely get started, we want to jump to the conclusion. Happy endings are our favorite part of any project.
Yet behind every successful conclusion is a productive plan. Conclusions are consequences, and all consequences are caused-they’re the result of something that went before. We are wise when we take the time to see and understand what it takes to make a happy ending really happen.
There can be no productive work without rest, no holding on without letting go, no going forward without firm footing-even if finding that footing costs us some time and a few tumbles. Every step of the way is made possible by the step that preceded it. Satisfying conclusions come to be when we take all of the steps, one at a time, and stop sabotaging the project with shortcuts.
Self-esteem thrives on the satisfaction of a job well done.
September 3 Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics: It is addictive, give momentary pleasure, and separates the victim from reality. John Gardner
Fostering self-esteem means taking care of ourselves. Often we need to treat ourselves easy, give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, remind ourselves of how far we have come rather than how far we have to go. Yet there is a fine line between sympathizing with our own struggles and wallowing in self-pity.
Self-pity works against self-esteem because it binds us to reality. Self-pity wears a black veil over its downcast head. Because it never looks up, it sees only part of the picture. And it is only on the anvil of reality that we are able to hammer out something of value. We can’t work with what we can’t see.
We need to stay on duty, hammering away, making the sparks fly. As we do, we not only see what is tragic in our lives but what we can do about it. The difference between bad luck and bad judgment will become clearer. What is beyond our power to change will be separated from what we can very well change if we so choose. Self-pity, in its dark glasses, can’t see any of that.
My prospects are as real as my wounds.
September 4 It is by tiny steps that we ascend to the stars. Jack Leedstrom
Two years after a painful divorce, Jan decided it was time to pick up the pieces of her life. The first thing she did to renew her self-esteem was to start a modest savings program. Since childhood, Jan had an ongoing problem with financial irresponsibility. Not that she didn’t work hard and make a fair wage. But for some reason, probably buried deeply in family-of-origin issues, she could not and would not save a nickel.
Because she literally couldn’t save a nickel, she started by saving pennies. In an old peanut butter jar on a closet shelf, her program started. Over weeks, pennies led to nickels, nickels to dollars, and dollars to a brand new habit of fiscal stability.
Easy to look at a pathetic little jar and say, “Big deal! Pennies!” Yet it was a big deal because it was a first step, and any first step, no matter how small, is a legitimate cause for celebration.
It’s not the size of the step that counts, but the fact that I take it.
September 5 Worry is a time-waster and ulcer-maker. Gail Grenier Sweet
Recognizing that we have serious self-esteem issues to deal with may rock us back on our heels. It may take a bit of time to accept the situation and even a little longer to figure out what to do about it. Nothing wrong with that. At this point, the only wrong thing we can do is to worry about it.
Worry is a form of wheel spinning. It wastes energy that could better be used to solve the problem we’re worrying about. It wastes the time that could have been invested in the future. It wastes life because worry blankets every spark and flicker of joy. And without joy, what is there to live for?
Certainly we have genuine reasons for concern when we get honest with ourselves. Some of the tasks we face are far from easy, and we realize now that the stakes are too high to avoid them. But concern and worry are very different things. Worry is nonproductive and obsessive. Long after concern has done all it can, worry is still grinding away, wheels spinning in the sand.
Worry focuses on the things that I can’t change, rather than the things that I can do something about.
September 6 The example of good men is visible philosophy. English Proverb
Just as we do not live in a vacuum, untouched by others and touching no one, so too, our efforts to maintain positive self-esteem are not isolated or self-contained. No matter how common and ordinary we think we are, we influence others. In ways we never notice or intend, everything we do reaches out and touches someone. And as with all human contact, the effect can be positive or negative.
Just think of all the people who see us or hear us in the course of a day. As we try to think well of ourselves and act that way, as we commit to the behaviors that evaluate our self-esteem, we are constantly having an impact on the people around us. Who knows the battles going on within the walled-up hearts of a brother or sister next to us? Who knows what really lurks behind the happy facades our fellow human beings are willing to show us? Perhaps a world of hurt.
A smile, a word of encouragement, or a compliment may well be the spillover of our own efforts to help ourselves. Transformed, any good we do ourselves may become the golden key that opens a long-rusted door in someone else’s heart. We are more powerful people than we realize we are. What we do or fail to do is important to other people as well as ourselves.
Ordinary people often wield extraordinary influence.
September 7 A man was starving in Capri. He turned his eyes and looked at me. Edna Saint Vincent Millay
Some people are both blessed and burdened with extraordinary empathy and compassion. Because of early social training or perhaps even a bit of genetic code, they’re far more sensitive than most to other people’s distress. They’re quick to identify, understand, and vicariously “feel” the hardships and heartaches that less aware people don’t even notice.
Nobody knows how many hearts have been lightened, how many tears dried, by these tender, caring souls. But this capacity, whether it’s born or learned or both, is a lovely rose with thorns attached. The danger, of course, is in going too far, giving too much, developing a soft head to go with the soft heart.
Self-esteem soars when we honor our values. But our expectations of self must be grounded in reality. It isn’t possible to respond to every cry for help. To be effective over the long haul, compassionate works must be guided by discipline and wisdom. Even the best impulses don’t have a limitless bank of energy to draw on. If we want to have something to give tomorrow, we must learn to pace ourselves today.
Managing compassion takes as much thoughtful planning as managing any other powerful resource.
September 8 During his lifetime, an individual should devote his efforts to creating happiness and enjoy it. Ch` en Tu-hsiu
Happiness is not constant for anyone, but our capacity for it is. There is never a time in our lives when we cannot strive for happiness. Yet striving for happiness is a different proposition than wishing to be happy. Many of us have slipped into a passive role. We wait for happiness, we hope for it, we complain if we go too long without it, but we stop actively striving to be happy.
Yet to strive is to try. It is to consciously make plans and consistently keep to those plans in the pursuit of the desired goal. People who achieve any worthwhile goal are strivers. There’s no other way it could be. Excellence is but the polished face of practice.
So too, in the pursuit of self-esteem, we must learn to be steady strivers. We must get off the bench and do our daily readings, practice the positive word, avoid those people and places that would cast us down-all the step-by-step behaviors that ultimately result in our reaching the goal.
My happiness is a result, not a gift.
September 9 Courage is walking naked through a cannibal village. Sam Levenson
Nakedness before people eaters has to be the ultimate vulnerability, doesn’t it? The idea is so awful it would almost be funny-if it weren’t somehow familiar. Unfortunately, horror images of vulnerability are nothing new to many of us.
Our own “cannibal village” is any place we happen to be when we decide, for the sake of self-esteem, that it’s time to put our defenses down. Perhaps to win our freedom, we face the prospect of breaking an addiction to some substance or person. We know we’ll have to strip ourselves of delusion and denial, to let go of our protective covering, to get the job done. Maybe we have to stand up and sound off to an overbearing parent who has dogged our lives well into adulthood; talk about feeling vulnerable! Maybe the cannibals we fear are the real feelings we have to expose ourselves to for the first time; surely they’ll pick our bones!
We all have an especially dangerous place we want to avoid. We’ll go miles out of our way to walk around it, to make sure we’re not anywhere near there without a whole lot of protection. “Anything but that!” we say, “Anywhere but there!” But if going in there naked is what it takes, then that is what it takes.
My dangers diminish as my self-confidence increases.
September 10 Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are stiffened. Billy Graham
Courage is personal. All of us hammer it out-or don’t-in the privacy of our own souls. No one can be courageous for you anymore than you can be courageous for someone else. The buck stops with us.
Yet there is a communal element in all individual growth. When any of us takes a stand, a model has been created to inspire the rest of us. In ways we would never guess, our smallest brave efforts-which may not even be particularly successful-have results that reach beyond us. A single deed of ours may become the stone someone else uses to start building a new foundation.
All human words and deeds are something like radio transmitters. Vibrations and messages are going out from us constantly. We have no idea how many may be “tuned in,” but most of us have a far wider audience than we realize. A word spoken against bigotry, a refusal to use drugs, a willingness to keep on plodding against the odds—these are just a few of the courageous personal behaviors that radiate light into the darkness. Even though our intention isn’t, and shouldn’t be, to “wow” other people—it’s good to know that our personal sweat, as a side effect, might water somebody else’s garden.
Don’t look now—but someone is watching!
September 11 Habit is stronger than reason.--George Santayana
Loving or despising ourselves becomes habitual. And habits, as all living things, are in the business of staying alive. When habits are attacked they put up immediate, heroic defenses. All habits do this—the healthy as well as the not so healthy. Thus a habitual self-despiser who attempts radical change can expect plenty of resistance. There’s no other way it could be.
In the midst of our efforts to bolster self-image—if these efforts go against a long-held habit of self-defeat—all of a sudden we may find ourselves thinking, “I have a right to be any way I want to be,” or “This self-renewal stuff is all fantasy. I am what I am and will always be that way.”
Self-pity often rears its ugly head in defense of old habits. This ingrained spoiler may seductively tell us, “Poor me. I had it so bad growing up, I have an excuse for not trying,” or “I just wasn’t born with many gifts. Other people have a much easier time than I, so if I try to be better, I will only fail.” Old habits die hard. Resistance is to be expected, seen for what it is—and counterresisted.
Self-pity and despair are the bodyguards of long enthroned habits.
September 12 The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of in humanity. George Bernard Shaw
All of us remember hurtful times when we were snubbed or overlooked. Indifference can wound us as badly as hatred. How we handle those wounds is an accurate indication of how we handle our lives. Will those sore spots heal or fester, inspire or demoralize? Self-esteem decides.
Some fifty years ago a poor boy sat fishing with his cane pole on the banks of a river. Once in a while, a big fancy boat would go by filled with laughing, well-dressed people. But none ever stopped. No one ever asked that little boy if he’d like to take a ride. The boy couldn’t understand this. With child logic, he wondered why. After all, they had plenty of room, and they clearly saw him sitting there on the muddy bank. Some of them even waved. Why didn’t they ask him to come along?
Today that young fisherman of yesteryear has several large boats of his own. Every week he invites groups of people who don’t have access to such finery to join him on a nice, long boat ride. The pleasure he was denied he can now provide to others. And he never passes a boy on the riverbank without asking him if he’d like a ride.
Giving is sweet; giving what I didn’t get is even sweeter.
September 13 Beware no man more than thyself. Thomas Fuller
If we’re serious about reconditioning our attitudes and thus our self-perception, we want to stack the odds in our favor as much as possible. For one thing, we should stay away from naysayers, fools, fast talkers, seducers—or any others who would nail our shoes to the floor when we want to move forward. It is a wise person indeed who knows who and what to avoid.
Yet it is also wise to remember that we ourselves are both our own best friend and worst enemy. Bad companions or not, no one can force us to do anything without our consent. Every day may bring dozens of invitations to cynicism, negativity, self-pity, stinking thinking—but we can turn them, down. If we accept, however, we have only ourselves to blame. We opened the mail, after all; we picked up the phone.
Because of ignorance, jealousy, or fear, other people may throw rocks in our path. But in the final analysis, we are the ones with both the bad habits that need to be overcome and the power to overcome them. It is we, not anyone else, who hold the key to all that power.
I must be aware of the enemy within as well as the enemy without.
September 14 Beware of your expectations for they become your reality. Elita Darby
Safeguarding our valuables only makes sense. Our homes, our families, our reputations are precious beyond price. Perhaps no valuable, however, needs more careful safeguarding than the integrity of our thoughts. For our habitual thoughts become reality.
If we allow ourselves, no matter how subconsciously, to mindlessly assume that the world’s ways are predictable, fair, or controllable, than every knock that jostles us will be interpreted as a startling personal attack. We can easily see ourselves as victims of life, rather than as participants.
If, however, we make sure to keep a balanced grasp of reality, many of the inconveniences, slights, and absurdities of life will be seen as just that: life as it is. Many, perhaps most, of the things that happen are not necessarily pointed directly at us. When we expect life to be anything but what it is, we set ourselves up for unnecessary disappointment.
My vision of life as it should be is rarely the same as life as it is.
September 15 A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. George Bernard Shaw
The ability to admit our blunders and mistakes is not only gracious, it’s absolutely necessary if we want to hoist our self-esteem out of a ditch. Self-esteem can’t be rescued if false pride comes first. To defend a mistake only doubles its impact.
Yet low self-esteem impels us to hide behind walls of denial or delusion, to blame our mistakes on others, or to protest that they never happened at all. All of which doubles the delusion. The obvious fact, of course, is that no one is perfect. There is no one who never makes mistakes. The separation comes between people who profit from their mistakes and people who do not.
Most of what we learn comes from the mistakes we make. Wisdom, the deepest form of all knowledge, can only be gained by getting out there, getting knocked down, but then getting up and going on—stronger and smarter than we were before. If we are wrong, let us be quick to admit it and make a correction. The only really damaging error is the denial of error.
Honest admission takes the sting out of my mistakes.
September 16 It is sad not to be loved, but it is much sadder not to be able to love. Miguel de Unamuno
What could be more crushing than to be in love with someone who is either not in love with you, or who simply does not have the skills necessary for a healthy relationship? Either case is a self-esteem killer. No matter how you try to take care of yourself, or work your program, one-way love is a misery as long as it lasts.
It hurts to reach out to someone who won’t or can’t reach back. Even if we know the loved one’s chemical use or other unattended emotional impairment is the real reason behind the rejection-it’s still rejection and it still hurts. Even if we rightfully say, “It’s his problem,” it’s still our pain that we have to deal with.
Depending on the situation, what can and must be done varies greatly. What doesn’t vary is the sad fact that we can’t make somebody else love us, no matter how hard we try. No matter how many extra miles we’re willing to go, if the other won’t move an inch, the relationship won’t move an inch either. Until we can accept that and achieve some detachment, we’ll be stuck right where we are.
Others have survived doomed love relationships, and so can I.
September 17 Praise is the best diet for us, after all. Reverend Sydney Smith
As much as we yearn for it and suffer when we don’t get it, praise makes most of us uncomfortable. “Thanks,” we say, “but I should have finished it yesterday.” “Thanks, but I still have ten pounds to go.”
“Thanks, but the color is all wrong for me.” We’re almost as bad at accepting compliments as we are at accepting criticism!
It may be that we’re embarrassed by our need for recognition. Perhaps what makes us squirm is not the compliment itself-which may be long overdue and less enthusiastic than it should have been-but our fear of exposure. We’d die rather than let anyone know how badly we need to be singled out and appreciated. So we minimize and deflect words of praise as quickly as they are spoken; that way, we keep our “stroke hunger” to ourselves.
What we don’t realize is that everybody else is as hungry as we are. Inside each of us, although we be gray or bald, sits a shiny-faced first grader hoping to get a star pasted on his forehead. We all need applause-and we get far less of it than we deserve. As we learn to accept our own neediness, we’ll become less self-conscious about accepting praise.
The ability to gracefully accept a compliment is a sign of emotional maturity.
September 18 Half measures availed us nothing. Alcoholics Anonymous (the Big Book)
In launching any adventure there is a great deal of wisdom in not trying to do the impossible. We only defeat out efforts by burdening ourselves with expectations of doing something that is beyond our power at the present time.
The caution from the “bible” of AA applies not just to action, but to intent. The words half measures are also addressed to attitudes like “maybe” or “wouldn’t it be nice if” or “someday I’ll have to try that.” These half-way attitudes get halfway results, of course. When it comes to managing self-esteem or any other valuable asset, we can’t afford to end up with nothing.
We might not yet be ready or able to find another career-but the attitude that the change will come is what counts. Today we might not have the strength to confront an abusive situation-but the commitment to build that strength matters more. We might not be able to take a giant step at the present time-but the daily practice that strengthens and stretches our abilities guarantees that the day will come when the ability will be there. When we’re doing everything we can do, we’re making a full effort.
All-or-nothing thinking can also avail me nothing.
September 19 Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true. Demosthenes
People with great energy and enthusiasm can accomplish wonders. If they’re also intelligent and focused, the odds are even better that they’ll succeed at whatever they try. Unless they’re also dishonest.
A man named Alex was desperately in search of freedom from guilt and the serenity of positive self-esteem. In putting together a program of growth, he decided to go all out. There was nothing Alex wouldn’t try, no new behavior he wouldn’t initiate and practice doggedly. He read all the self-help material he could get his hands on. He kept a journal. He attended meetings every day. Yet for all of his efforts, he remained stuck in a swamp of guilt.
Alex had a drinking problem. Because his drinking was the true source of his nagging guilt, he wasn’t going to make any progress unless, in addition to his new program activities, he also stopped the addictive drinking. All the energetic “starts” in the world aren’t going to help Alex until he summons the courage to make that one, crucial “stop.” He’s only fooling himself by working so hard at what, for him, is the wrong job.
If success is the goal, first things must be done first.
September 20 When virtues are pointed out first, flaws seem less insurmountable. Judith Martin
It only makes sense that we can’t mow down anybody else’s self-esteem without damaging our own at the same time. We need to remember that fact when it is our legitimate task to correct a child, an employee, or anybody else who falls under our authority. When the power balance between two people is unequal, insensitivity is all too easy.
Before we call out somebody’s shortcomings, it’s only decent to lead off the conversation with some acknowledgment of his or her good qualities. Any positive, sincere statement will do to cushion and make a context for the criticism that is to follow. Our goal, after all, is to help that person do better, no one does better after a bludgeoning.
Sensitive, constructive criticism creates a win-win situation. By beginning with praise, the person in charge helps the other person to maintain dignity and self-worth. When we enable others to save face, we demonstrate not only kindness but intelligence, not only generosity but maturity.
Criticism of others must be handled carefully, for my sake as well as theirs.
September 21 Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide. Napoleon I
There are psychological as well as dollars-and-cents reasons for using experts to advise us before we enter new ground. Scouts who have been there before help us minimize our risk. Consultants can help us decide whether we should get involved in the first place.
Yet in personal endeavors, like the quest for self-esteem, outside input has limited value. Ultimately, the build-up or tear-down decisions are ours and ours alone. Suppose, for example, that someone puts us down and somebody else compliments us for the very same quality. Who do we believe? Or say that we have to make a decision that will have a considerable impact on our self-esteem. We consult several wise people and get different advice from each one. Again, who do we believe?
Of course we’d rather share the responsibility and have someone else bear part of the load. Perhaps we’d even like someone else to decide for us. But then we would never know the joyful confidence that comes from learning to trust our own judgment.
I can use outside input to validate my reasoning, but I must decide for myself.
September 22 The distance from nothing to a little is ten thousand times more than from a little to the highest degree in this life. John Donne
All the “think big!” talk we hear from motivational speakers may actually be deflating when we consider how far we have to go. “Big, indeed,” we may mutter to ourselves as we try to muster the courage to take even one baby step in a chosen new direction.
But there’s nothing contradictory about thinking big and starting small. The small, realistic start, as a matter of fact, is the best indicator that real progress is in the works. The successes that undergird self-esteem don’t come all at once. Real progress is always achieved inch by inch, decision by decision, baby step by baby step. But, oh how important are those first few inches that take us from nowhere to somewhere!
It well may be that right now we don’t have the strength to overthrow some hated cycle of dependency. But the bottom line isn’t what’s happening right now. If we are making the small decisions and taking the small steps, we will have the strength to make our move when the time comes. It all adds up.
True progress takes time and patience.
September 23 Speaking is a beautiful folly: with that man dances over all things. Friedrich Nietzsche
Raising self-esteem is a matter of growth and all growth requires honesty. The opposite of honesty is delusion and denial; nothing real or helpful comes from those deceivers. A common method of tap-dancing around honesty is through intellectualization. When we throw up a smoke screen of words that few can understand or follow, or have enough interest to even care about, we create an escape route from accountability.
In all the readings, verbiage, and meetings associated with self-improvement, we who are inclined to intellectualization can find infinite places to hide. It’s easy to create a complicated maze of all the right words and phrases that leads to nowhere. At no point does the meaning of those words connect with life as we live it. When we find the buzzwords, we can lose the truth.
Clive recently got called on that in his support group meeting. After his usual twenty-minute display of fancy talk, a fellow group member said, “I don’t understand a thing you’ve said. You’re spinning your web again. Talk straight. Who are you? What is really going on with you? What do you want to do about it?” Clive was lucky enough to meet a real friend that night. Greater self-esteem became possible because someone challenged him to step out of the smoke screen.
Fancy words are a poor substitute for the plain truth.
September 24 Each new season grows from the leftovers from the past. That is the essence of change, and change is the basic law. Hal Borland
Coming to terms with ourselves and the world we live in is an ongoing negotiation. It’s not the kind of deal we can hammer out once and be done with. Circumstances change. We change. The tools and techniques that kept us humming ten years ago may be useless to the people we are today.
When the children were home, for example, we may have invested most of our prime interest and energy in them. Fixing their bikes, chaperoning their dances, sharing in their joys and sorrows, made us feel needed and useful. Now that they’re on their own, we need to find a new sense of purpose if this new stage of life is to be as happy and fulfilling as the last one was. Retirement from work presents us with the same challenge; to keep going forward, we need to retool.
Life transitions aren’t terrible unless we fight them. Once we may have based our self-esteem on being “last up” in a spelling bee; then we matured a little and moved on to something else. We renegotiated with reality. To stay healthy and happy, we must accept and work with that ongoing, lifelong process. Our task is as ever, to find new and deeper sources of satisfaction.
The building blocks of my self-esteem change as circumstances change.
September 25 If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western Civilization would presumably flunk it. Stanley Garn
Being called “dumb” is hard on our self-esteem. But accepting that insult is even worse. Who has the right to lay such labels on anyone else? There are many kinds of “smarts” that don’t show up in IQ tests or shine in the classroom. At best, the definition of intelligence is relative.
Many of us shore up our self-esteem by judging others according to our own specialized standards. The schoolteacher who snickers at her mechanic’s grammar probably doesn’t realize that her own mechanical ignorance makes the mechanic snicker. The artist who can’t do his own taxes may well feel superior to the tax preparer who would prefer a snapshot of his own dog to any of the artist’s works. The list goes on and on, around and around, all egos vying for an upper slot.
Obviously what shows us as less than brilliant on one scale of measurement may place us near the top of another. As the quote above suggests, how well would any of us fare if we were dropped in the Outback and had to come up with the insights and skills to excel there? We need to stop making phony, superficial comparisons to aggrandize ourselves. We need to stop putting down and writing off people as “dumb.” And never should we believe anyone who applies that label to us.
Only dumb people call other people “dumb.”
September 26 The optimist fell ten stories. At each window bar he shouted to his friends: “All right so far!” Anonymous
Easy to laugh at the plummeting “optimist,” but how many times have we ourselves been blindly hopeful about obviously hopeless situations? Have we not refused to look ahead simply because we didn’t want to see what was coming? Manufactured “reasons” by the dozens for a totally unreasonable course of action?
Most of us have had times in our lives when we let ourselves float along without thinking about where we were going. Perhaps we knew we were heading for a fall, but somehow we couldn’t or wouldn’t read the writing on the wall. Maybe we even congratulated ourselves, as the optimist did, for surviving second by second!
Then came the inevitable crash, the devastation, the brokenness. Only then did we realize we aren’t “surviving” when we’re hurtling downward. Instead, survival was the painful process of cleaning up the mess and mending our wounds. We learned the hard way that flying is a fantasy, floating is far from a free ride, and false optimism makes a poor parachute.
A positive attitude about a negative behavior makes for a negative result.
September 27 There came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites. Mark 12:42
The dictionary tell us that a mite is a small coin “worth very little.” The Bible says that two mites were the equivalent of a penny. By any reckoning, an offering of two mites is so close to nothing that it almost doesn’t count. What possible difference could it make whether you give it or not? Why bother if that’s the best you can do?
Jerry showed up at his Saturday morning support group meeting. Depressed as he was, out of work as he was, down on himself as he was, he showed up. He didn’t even have a quarter to throw into the coffee kitty, but he came anyways. “I’m so depressed I hardly feel I have a right to be here,” he told a friend who greeted him at the door. Jerry didn’t speak at that meeting and certainly didn’t dance out on his tiptoes, raring to go. But he did sit there and try to listen. It was the best he could do.
Like the widow in the Bible story, Jerry contributed more than all the others that day because he threw in everything he had-his presence. By simply having the courage to show up, he added immeasurably to the “treasury” of his group. Who knows how many others there, witnessing his refusal to quit, went away impressed and inspired? Who know that that single act of dogged determination wasn’t Jerry’s own turning point?
No positive action is too small to count.
September 28 Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he’s well dressed. There ain’t much credit in that. Charles Dickens
Of course, we smile back when fortune smiles on us first. During those times in our lives when everything comes up roses, we have no problem feeling good about ourselves. Why should we? The sun shines every day, everybody loves us, and we love them. When the living is easy, self-esteem is easy, too. But what happens when fickle fortune finds another friend? What happens when it rains on our “glad rags”?
As much as we bewail the effects of negative outside influences, positive outside influences, when we give them too much power, can also set us up for self-esteem trouble. After all, we can’t control either the sun or the rain. If we base our self-regard on happy coincidences or lucky breaks, how secure will we be when our luck runs out? No honeymoon lasts forever.
The roots of self-esteem have to be deep enough to carry us through the bad weather that plagues so many of our days. That means that our health must depend more on what’s going on inside than what’s going on outside. Self-esteem is a gift from us to us. Fortunate circumstances can give us a boost, but it’s we ourselves who must make the climb.
The core of my self-esteem is not dependent on outside circumstances.
September 29 He played five aces. Now he plays the harp. Tombstone, Boot Hill, Arizona
Humor is a little-mentioned aspect of self-esteem. We have so many serious matters to consider, humor often falls in the “nice if you can get around to it” category.
Yet much self-esteem is lost by concentrating on the pathological aspects of our lives. We get so intent on what is wrong with self, the world, and everything in the world, that we get depressed Humor is an effective antidote to all that toxic input.
Self-improvement implies self-knowledge that can only be gained by poking and prodding around tender sore spots. But life was not meant to be one long anatomy class. The whole purpose of self-improvement is to get to a better place-and that’s not an operating room or a morgue. Tears and laughter are both expressions of reality. If we don’t find much to laugh about, we’re flying with one wing.
To “lighten up” doesn’t mean to lapse into silliness; it means to see the light.
September 30 Industry is a better horse to ride than genius. Walter Lippmann
How wonderful it would be to have genius abilities! We could solve problems without effort, or paint masterpieces as easily as a child scribbles in a tablet. Maybe we could even find a cure for cancer. How our self-esteem would soar if we could do such marvelous things!
Perhaps. Genius is a gift. Like all true gifts it is neither earned nor deserved, but given randomly. Genius misused or not used at all profits the recipient little. Many a genius, in fact, has led a miserable life.
Prudence tells us we would do better to rely on industry and hard work. Even if the dues are calluses and mistakes, it is the learning and the doing that make something of value, that make of us something of value. What we acquire through industry we value in proportion to our effort in the accomplishment. And that value is what gives us respect for ourselves.
My ability to do skillful work is an important component of my self-esteem.
