One of the main dichotomies of life is that while you are the center of the world, you are most certainly not the center of anyone else’s world. This leads to the grand social compromise that we call society.
The main take away here is that there are two mentalities that we need to successfully integrate; our solidity as the center of our world, and our solidity as not being the center of anyone else’s world.
These are both very difficult to achieve.
Solidity of the center of our world, is what we typically call self-esteem, and as you and I both know, is a struggle for all human beings, and is one of the main differences between man and animals. (I would argue that it is this meta-cognition that forces man forward to try to achieve and impact the world in search of finding their way and purpose through life instead of realizing that they are solid in their place and there is no need to find something new, which I have touched on elsewhere in this blog, and will return to again, I am sure.)
It always amazes me how self-esteem plays such a central role in people’s lives, and how seldom I meet anyone with really solid self-esteem. Typically, when I think I have met someone who is really solid, as I got to know them, I found that underneath it all they were just a fragile as myself. Or that they were lying to themselves or me. Or they simply had no meta-cognition.
Solidity as not being the center of anyone else’s world means that we can’t think too highly of ourselves or we’ll be shunned by the community as egotistical, since “who are we to think so highly of ourselves.”
The intrinsic conundrum here is that we end up impacting our own self-esteem since we can’t think too highly of ourselves, but at the same time we certainly do need to think highly of ourselves to have good self-esteem.
The best compromise that I have found is to realize that I am the center of my world, and the most important person in my world, but that doesn’t mean that I am better than anyone else, simply the most important person in my world. That way, I am not putting anyone down in my assessment of myself, rather, stating a fact, which honestly, I think anyone else can agree with too. I think you are the most important in your world, and I would expect that you think the same thing about me.
It reminds me of the Rabbinic concept – “I am but dust”/ “For me the world was created”.
Balancing self-esteem and humility can be messy business. Many of us seem to err on the side of humility, and it’s often to the tune of self-flagellation. It’s a hard balance to find. How can I work towards bettering myself (if I believe that we are all “works in progress”) without becoming so hopeless about the amount of growth still to be achieved?
Keep up the great thoughts, cuz!
Love,
Cuzzie Suz