Distorted Reflection
Feb. 28th, 2004 10:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerI have a fairly large chunk of self-confidence. Which isn't to say that I think I'm perfect - I have plenty of people around who will happily put me straight if I veer too far in that direction - but I do think that I'm fairly interesting, smart and fun to be around (if you're my kind of person - I'm probably not much fun to be around if you're into football, eastenders and gangsta rap).
Anyway, I'm fairly confident in my own general goodness. I don't need reassuring on this, partially because I get enough general background levels of reassurance and partially because other people's opinions don't actually matter a hell of a lot to me when it comes to matters of aesthetics - _I_ like me.
What baffles the hell out of me is why people that seem obviously cool to me - smart, funny, interesting people, who are capable, creative, fun and generally froody, _aren't_ self-confident. They need other people to tell them that they're worth knowing. They need reassurance. They don't believe, deep down, that they're good people.
Ed pointed out yesterday (yeah, this was the other conversation we had. Well, we chatted a lot about a wide variety of silly things, but I don't tend to catalogue silliness most of the time) that people look at themselves and see faults. That a cool person looking in the mirror may see nothing but the faults they have, much in the same way that an anorexic may look in the mirror and think "If I was just a stone lighter..." when they're already a bag of skin and bones.
So, all you people with low self esteem - why is it that you feel that you're a bad person? Do you think that you are undeserving? Or that you are deserving, but that the world will never recognise that? What do you need reassurance about? What would make you believe that you were good?
Anyway, I'm fairly confident in my own general goodness. I don't need reassuring on this, partially because I get enough general background levels of reassurance and partially because other people's opinions don't actually matter a hell of a lot to me when it comes to matters of aesthetics - _I_ like me.
What baffles the hell out of me is why people that seem obviously cool to me - smart, funny, interesting people, who are capable, creative, fun and generally froody, _aren't_ self-confident. They need other people to tell them that they're worth knowing. They need reassurance. They don't believe, deep down, that they're good people.
Ed pointed out yesterday (yeah, this was the other conversation we had. Well, we chatted a lot about a wide variety of silly things, but I don't tend to catalogue silliness most of the time) that people look at themselves and see faults. That a cool person looking in the mirror may see nothing but the faults they have, much in the same way that an anorexic may look in the mirror and think "If I was just a stone lighter..." when they're already a bag of skin and bones.
So, all you people with low self esteem - why is it that you feel that you're a bad person? Do you think that you are undeserving? Or that you are deserving, but that the world will never recognise that? What do you need reassurance about? What would make you believe that you were good?
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-28 10:52 am (UTC)Sometimes I hate myself, but then sometimes I think I'm great. A lot of the time I just think that there's not much point to anything since most of the really intelligent people I know aren't having much fun, and the people I see who are really stupid have far more money, and often are happier, than I am or my friends are.
I also think I'm a bit too tired/depressed/annoyed with the world right now to be answering this in a balanced way.