One of my friends, a different one from the one mentioned last time, has occasionally reminded me that they think highly of me because I "don't change myself for other people". This much is true, for the most part. I do avoid certain topics around people who've expressed strong disinterest, but that's about it.
What you don't see from that description though: I crave validation. So, I may not change to make people like me but I really, really want them to.
I also don't believe in myself all the time. One of the "slides" on the TV's at the entrance to my office building this week has a quote from Liberace, "Nobody will believe in you unless you believe in yourself." To which I retort in my head, "But how do you start believing in yourself if no-one believes in you?"
I suppose it may be more correct to say that I don't have particularly high self-esteem either, although that depends. In general, I tend to not think highly of myself, but I think the reason that I don't is because of the standards that I set for myself. They're so high, I think it's rare that I ever meet any of them. Admittedly, they may only be too high once you factor in my limitations (see the other parts of this series).
To repeat what I once told someone years ago, this morning I felt that "the world had fallen out from under me".
May 8, 2008
Output, Part 3
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2 comments:
I understand about the low self-esteem thing. Really and truly though, I don't think many people have good self esteem. When it comes down to it, I think you can trace 95% of someone's behavior back to self-esteem, good or bad.
"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who, when presented with a glass that is exactly half full, say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty.
The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: 'What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass! And at the other end of the bar the world is full of the other type of person, who has a broken glass, or a glass that has been carefully knocked over (usually by one of the people calling for a larger glass), or who had no glass at all, because they were at the back of the crowd and had failed to catch the barman's eye." -- The Truth, Terry Pratchett
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