!o! Grandma only ever had your best interests at heart! :D

Yea, I have no idea what self-esteem is after asking this question.

It seems like one of those egotistical concepts that can never be fully actualized.

For the matter, as mentioned earlier, self-esteem can never be attained much like happiness; but, is a continual never ending process.

But, then one wonders how did Buddha attain nirvana? Maybe if you believe hard enough it can be true?

He combined self esteem with humility.

He died, presumably. lol

See, the first stage of nirvana is attained when you give up on your personal hopes and dreams, but this is incomplete, because even though your spirit is dead, the body still remains, so nirvana isn't completed until death.

See, the first stage of nirvana is attained when you give up on your personal hopes and dreams, but this is incomplete, because even though your spirit is dead, the body still remains, so nirvana isn't completed until death. — Wosret

I think, subconsciously I have been living a nihilistic life. Nihilism quite literally leaves no room for developing self-esteem, in anything, including the self, as nothing is of value. (Quite a tongue twister there)

Another version is to only treat the self as a source of value; however, the self has no inherent value devoid of things that are not part of itself thus leading to solipsism.

I try to avoid giving advice, (as the song goes), everything I learned came second hand, and I dare not teach what I don't understand.

I doubt that you'll logic your way out though. Being engaged with the world with an undisturbed focus and enthusiasm is tops. When the brain goes into rest mode, as it were, and shifts to emotional and social reasoning has the highest ups and downs -- but just idlness. No enthralling projects, no peeps to figure out, be infatuated with, discern the intentions, needs, and desires of... that's probably the most drab. Not really as bad as the social, or physical pain you risk with the other two (same part of the brain lights up regardless of whether it's physical or social pain) -- but it's just a dull emptiness. Even when inspired, you feel like the energy goes to waste, or there is no where to direct it because of the lack of physical and social passion.

Sometimes one feels like a piece of wooden furniture. Strong, sturdy, and well-made, but covered with about five layers of sloppily applied paint. How good it would feel to strip the layers off or be dipped in an acid bath to dissolve the paint. Or so one sometimes feels...

Just shape shift your way out of it.

From what I know of it, nirvana has little to do with believing anything. It's about understanding that the cause of all of life's unhappiness lies in the desires and attachments we have, and then letting go of these desires to attain eternal happiness.

One can see the torture that one goes through when confronting one's self with having/maintaining a high sense of self-esteem. — Question

I propose that self-esteem satisfies a sort of drive just as food satisfies hunger. To look in the mirror, whether physical or in some medium, such as the self manifest in writing, and to like what one experiences is a particularly human pleasure. I suggest measuring this drive in terms of trade-offs. Will you deny yourself the pleasure of ice cream for the quite different pleasure of seeing a slender person in the mirror? Will you study a subject you don't like, when you could be binge-watching a great new show, for the pleasure of seeings those A's drop on your university website? Will you drag yourself out of bed at 5AM on a Sunday to do charity work for the pleasure of seeing yourself as someone who makes a difference? (Maybe there is empathy for the suffering involved, too, but surely we can acknowledge narcissistic pleasure in some cases --else why give alms in secret?) Finally even the condemnation of narcissism allows for a narcissistic reading. We enjoy the thought of ourselves as lovably humble or emotionally mature.

I think the torture you mention is precisely our perception of the gap between who we are and who we (at that moment) would like to see ourselves as. It's plausible that braggarts and pathological liars are accidentally revealing the perfect opposite of that they which to present perhaps to themselves as much as others. But it's also plausible that those who are rarely satisfied with themselves will evolve a way a thinking that declares self-esteem to be a vice or an illusions. "No one is really happy with themselves. It's all just bluff, pretense, sickliness." In my view, we can get better at scratching the itch for self-esteem just as we get better at satisfying other urges. We can get better at being happy in general, as all of these skills (practical as well as self-reflective considerations of value) coalesce. Spiritual crisis is (in my view) transitional. We not only adjust ourselves to the person we want to see in the mirror: We also adjust the person we want to see in the mirror to the person we are good at being.

Ha!

Self esteem is just having rational expectations of yourself and self value when comparing yourself with others.

I propose that self-esteem satisfies a sort of drive just as food satisfies hunger. — R-13

Surely self-esteem is not as important a drive as hunger? Would you say then that self-esteem or some form of narcissism must always exist in every human being?

Surely self-esteem is not as important a drive as hunger? Would you say then that self-esteem or some form of narcissism must always exist in every human being? — hunterkf5732

One could argue that narcissism, which I do understand as basic human "drive," is sometimes more powerful than hunger. Humans will risk their lives over honor, reputation, status concerns. Weight-lifters kill themselves with steroids. Anorexics are of course the perfect example of narcissism overpowering hunger.

Narcissism is often painted as a sort of vice or failing, but what of the narcissist pleasure that one might take in not being one of those silly narcissists? Of course there a genuine losing of one's self in the object (the not self) at times, and this does seem connected to virtue. (The personalities that tend to fascinate me tend to doggedly impersonal, which is to say focused on what the most developed humans have in common.)

self esteem is basically self thought, if you think highly of yourself then you have high self esteem, lowly of oneself then you have low self esteem.
In reality it is affected by the persons desire and ego, and a persons inability to accept.

In reality it is affected by the persons desire and ego, and a persons inability to accept. — eb0t

An important fact about self-esteem is that it has become synonymous with the possession of material goods and status (again material goods, like a home, a nice car, and a high paying job). Thus, a person who can reject the desire for pumping up one's self-esteem with material possession and good, is in actuality the person with the highest self-esteem (think Stoics or Buddhists).

Self esteem is how much you like yourself. This comes from being true to yourself rather than following your lust for self gratification.

We play our part in the drama of life. We feel affection for our family and friends. Affection impels us to put our self in the place of the other, feel his/her pain. Mothers are a very vivid example of this. This affection is willingness to forego your own gratification to make others happy. If your sacrifices have been proportional to the affection you feel towards each of your loved ones (family, friends, community, country..), you like yourself; you feel honor in your heart. This is how we build character. Our character decides our worthiness for our happiness. The one who cheats his heart, gets cheated by his heart out of happiness.

Self esteem is how much you like yourself. — Ashwin Poonawala

The question arises in what esteem should one hold self-esteem?

If self-esteem is esteemed, then having high self-esteem will lead to higher self-esteem, and having low self-esteem will lead to lower self-esteem. It is an inherently unstable condition, as if the air conditioning has been wired up backwards, so that when it is hot the heating kicks in, and when it is cold, the cooler operates.

In the old days, humility was a virtue, and pride a sin - so it was the opposite situation where one could be proud of one's humility, but humiliated by one's pride. This is a stable self regulating system, and much to be preferred.

In the old days, humility was a virtue, and pride a sin - so it was the opposite situation where one could be proud of one's humility, but humiliated by one's pride. This is a stable self regulating system, and much to be preferre — unenlightened

Depends on which old days, of course. There were the Aristotelian old days when you really ought to be proud of the right things for the right reasons in the right way - one of which was almost certainly to love yourself, which Ari also regarded as part of Ethics Central.

Depends on which old days, of course. — mcdoodle

A bit of point missing going on here. One of the right things of which one should be proud was not 'being proud'. One of the things one should not love oneself for is loving oneself.

Most of us have some virtues and some vices, and it is 'reasonable', to be proud of one's virtues and ashamed of one's vices. But if pride is a virtue and shame is a vice, as promoted by certain cod psychological quarters, the feedback destabilises the personality, and leads towards manic depression, the overachiever's disease.

But if pride is a virtue and shame is a vice, as promoted by certain cod psychological quarters, the feedback destabilises the personality, and leads towards manic depression, the overachiever's disease. — unenlightened

Ahh, but that's all biological. Just take some lithium!

A bit of point missing going on here. One of the right things of which one should be proud was not 'being proud'. One of the things one should not love oneself for is loving oneself. — unenlightened

No, but one should be happy about being happy.

No one shouldn't, and for the same reason. If you are happy about being happy and unhappy about being unhappy, your mood swings will be exaggerated.

A bit of point missing going on here — unenlightened

I think you're missing my intended tone, I should have made myself clearer. I do perfectly clearly understand your point.