Everything to me: Self esteem

Self esteem is defined as the confidence and satisfaction a person has in him/herself

Self esteem is at times considered a most prized asset as with proper balance of self esteem can help lead to a successful and goal orientated life. In addition self esteem can be used to help reduce poverty, unhappiness, crime and other social issues. Self esteem can also be a battle ground for religion.

Why?

Our self image is like a thermometer, where it would normally show 72 degrees. However, even though we do not want the weather to be 72 degrees, we would still want the thermometer to read accurately and not 102 degrees.

At times if we are asked to value ourselves from a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of our self value and self worth. Some might choose a 7 or an 8. We will tend to rate ourselves higher than what we assume we are or lower that what we assume.

Teenagers like you and myself form our self image from two kind of methods which are words and actions. An example of words would be when our parents speak highly of ourselves in front of relatives and other neighbours. An example of actions being a determinant is like an abusive parent which abuse or put you down lowly. This leads to a lower self esteem.

I am a person who has a moderate self esteem as I go through the stage of thinking I am unable to achieve anything in life. For example, those who know me in primary and certain stages of secondary know i went through a period of stuttering in my conversations. I used to be a public speaking winner in standard 1 to 4..but it started in standard 5 where the stuttering has came between me from taking part in more public speaking competitions. I even feared to say Good morning to teachers in primary. I feared my teacher cannot hear or understand what i just said.
This fear I carried it with me through my form 1, till i had a teacher, Mrs. Thas..she always told me to take my time to say out certain answers. She gave me encouragement to speak out and do not let my fear hold me back. Through her help and dedication i was able to improve on it slightly, where i will only stutter for the beginning of a sentence. When going through form 2 and 3, it was tough as well. I went through alot of teasing for speaking that way from the guys, they would pretend to speak like me and stutter out of fun. It became very upset for me, but as them being my friends, i just told myself they were just joking and I will just pretend to laugh al0ng with them.

These shows when people do not understand about an issue it worsens the matter. For instance, in Africa, there were massive killings of 60+ HIV positive carriers due to the fact the other people lacked information on HIV and feared these people as disease carriers. When I read it was very saddening, innocent lives were taken away due to the fear and lack of awareness. That is why, it struck to me to pick Malaysian AIDS Foundation as my beneficiary for the Adventurun.

The constant jokes i received made me felt lowly about myself. When I became a Christian, God has been a source of strength i can rely on in times of need. Recently during my business plan finals in Taylors, Genji said i was the best speaker among all three of us, it really made me so happy. Imagine a person like me who went through this stuttering when i m nervous to speak overcoming my fears in front of a crowd of 50 ppl. When we start to achieve success of overcoming your fears, we start to build our self confidence.

Having a high self esteem is never wrong, but its considered unhealthy level of self esteem when there is pride involved. Pride is referring to having a high self esteem without God being the center of it. For example, we have seen American Idol auditions, there are occasions we have seen certain candidates who are unable to make it to the finals. They would blame Simon for not knowing music and very good singers. In fact, these singers are the worse of the worse. Due to the fact, they believe in their own 'talents' they are unable to accept the fact they are horrible singers. When they learn to accept the fact, that is when these people will be upset and as though world is ending as their passion and full attention has been a lie the whole time. Pride makes us taking so highly about ourselves where other people's needs are not important as long as we get what we want.

In the bible, Numbers chapter 13 and 14, it talks bout Caleb asking the people go forth and conquer the land. The people involved were afraid, as the descendants of Anak were huge in stature. This happens so common among us. An example, if we were to have a tug of war competition against a fat guy and a skinny guy. It is normal to assume that the fat guy will overpower the skinny guy. However, at times people forget that there are other determinants to win this, like maybe the stance, the grip and others. Caleb was a person who had a high esteem as he wanted to forth and conquer these 'giants' of the land. While, the others felt like grasshoppers, Caleb was confident that God has intention for him to be a victor in this hurdle and also there must be an amount of effort placed in other to overcome this hurdle. The people who feared to take that step and overcome these giants displays a fear of man attitude. The other people feared the descendants of Anak due to their huge stature and did not believe they can overcome these giants as they considered themselves mere grasshoppers. It is also like the skinny and fat guy tug of war. People will assume straight away, even myself logically will pick the fat guy to win it. However, if we do not believe in our own capabilities, we are no different from those people who feared the giants.

Moving on, have you all seen Snow White? People has looked at Snow White as the ultimate love story, where she is adored by all and finds a prince charming and stuff. However, lets look at the queen now. The queen always like to ask a mirror, "Mirror Mirror on the wall. who is the fairest one of all?" COME ON man!! is she some kinda of nut job? However the mirror always reflects snow white's image. After the queen finds out, she took so much effort to try and kill her, from hiring an assassin to kill her and even disguise herself as an old lady selling apples to Snow White. Due to her pride, unable to accept anyone better than her, she died at the end. This can be avoidable if the queen only looked at a real mirror and ask, who is the fairest one of all. It will reflect her image. If we cannot learn to accept our own self, we will be looking unto others with a sense of jealousy or even a sense of pity for themselves.

In the bible, it is stated in psalms 139:13, we are wonderfully and fearfully made. This word wonderfully made hits me alot as we are all different individuals with different gifts and talents. There are no two people have the same finger prints even twins. We all have an awesome future and a wonderful heart of giving. We must realize our purpose is not just to prepare ourselves to enter into God's kingdom but also to help serve others needs.

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paying tribute to my sifu, Vin See(right)..she found my blog:p