a note on self worth

This is a blog post that’s been about 4 years in the making. I’ll be talking about something I’ve been pondering for years.

I have certain issues regarding my own self-worth. Over the years I’ve cycled through a number of ‘coping’ mechanisms meant to improve the thought processes leading to my low self-esteem and a bunch of ‘solutions’ or ‘methods’ that I naively believed would get rid of my issues entirely. That journey lead me to learning some important things about myself including where this poor self image of myself originates from. But more importantly I’ve learned that self-esteem isn’t constant and that’s what I want to talk about.

Let me say it again – self-esteem isn’t constant and it’s okay to feel like garbage sometimes. Writing this post is uncomfortable because it forces me to say out loud things I wanted to stay private. I always told myself that once I figure out a way to be happy with myself permanently then I would finally talk about it all because hey, I’m not dealing with it anymore so it’s fine! (which is another unhealthy thing i do that I need to work on). So again, this is something I still deal with from time to time. But the thing that makes me mad is that the majority of self-help resources out there make self-esteem out to be just that – a thing you can fix once and for all and never have to deal with ever again. First off screw that. I was someone who held on to that notion for years only to become increasingly frustrated with myself whenever I wasn’t oozing confidence wherever (and whenever) I went.

Before I continue, I should point out that I’m not just a ball of self-deprecation. Quite the opposite actually. I would say I’m pretty damn confident and I love myself a whole lot at this point in time. The issues I’m referring to are an unhealthy pattern of thoughts and actions that spawn in me when some external force causes me to feel down about myself. And I’m mad because this pattern exists mainly due to the fact that I believed for so long that there must be something wrong with me if my self-confidence ever wavered in the slightest.

Back to what I was saying before. My point in all of this is to say that it’s okay to sometimes feel like shit. It’s absolutely normal. The key is that it doesn’t mean you actually are shit. You’re only human after all and you can’t be perfect all the time. No one’s confident every second of their lives but you’re still hella awesome.