Tuesday 11 August 2009

Self esteem and self improvement

Reading this I had cause to ponder;
....Fat Acceptance was as “evil” as McDonald’s* and that people really shouldn’t have as much self-esteem as those in Fat Acceptance believes everyone should.
The notion at the heart of the crisis mentality rests on this kind of thinking. Self esteem=complacency. It's rather capitalistic, in that undermining self worth, sans whatever product is being flogged-which will of course save the day is how we are sold most things.

The crisis goes further, it insists self esteem should be absent so it can be made up by becoming slim. It's sort of mortgaged on that basis.

What it doesn't considered is, what do you run on in the meantime? Whilst you are attaining the requisite slimness?

And anyway, would it be so wrong to not feel the need to strive to improve oneself? The assumption is that a desire to strive toward self improvement is a good and desirable thing, but is it really? I used to firmly believe this myself, now I'm not so sure.

One flaw is that it automatically implies that you are not good enough as you are. It's one thing to add skills, another to talk of "improving" oneself. We can bring our talents to fruition, but does that really make as any better as people?

Are we worth more somehow than our nascent selves?

The biggest fear we have of self esteem because of these sorts of doubt. That, if we felt pleased with ourselves, we'd come to a complete halt.

The work ethic bites. 

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