Friday 11 November 2016

SELF-ESTEEM AND THE THIN LINE BETWEEN PRIDE AND HUMILITY by Tommy Paul


Self-esteem as defined by the oxford English dictionary as "confidence in one’s worth". Less frequently, self-esteem can be replaced with self-respect which is also the knowledge of one’s own worth, or valuing of oneself. Ones self-esteem could be either low or high, good or bad; that is to say one with a high self-esteem is one that has total confidence in himself/herself, and the reverse is the case for someone with low self-esteem.
Often, a high self-esteem could be confused for pride as someone who is confident and knows/evaluates perfectly his/her worth is seen as proud and vice versa for one with low self-esteem as such a person is erroneously termed as humble. Pride; is a quality or state of been proud; inordinate self-esteem; an unreasonable conceit of one’s superiority in talents, beauty, wealth, rank, status, education, achievement etc., which manifest itself in lofty airs, distance, reserve and often contempt of others. Also, pride can be disdainful behavior or treatment; insolence or arrogance of demeanor, haughty bearing and conduct. Simply put, pride is a display of arrogant good self-esteem which is haughty and disdainful and makes others look/feel less important, any self-esteem that negatively impart others leads to pride. However, we are living in a perilous time/age were people are intolerable and excessively selfish, hence, misinterpretation and misunderstanding of simple gestures often lead to complications and issues.
These misinterpretations lead to complications which deals a fatal blow to even the noblest gesture. Humility on the other hand is the act of been humble, not lofty, proud, high or pretentious is unpretending, unassuming, humility is modest or thinking lowly of oneself.
Humility is not high and hence a humble person can be misinterpreted for one with low self-esteem, humility does not show off hence a humble person is not easily noticed and may not be considered for a first time opportunity, thus such opportunity is lost even without a trial.
Humility can be interpreted/misunderstood for shyness, weirdness or shrewdness. Having raised these flash points, there is always a need to maintain balance,as the world never identifies a perfect being/character. A need to maintain balance which satisfies our being or conscience, as ideally, the court of conscience should always supersede even the court of justice.
No human being is born without a conscience and so therefore this should be our first line of judgement as to the character we put on/display or develop as the case may be. There’s always a need for check and balance. A good self-esteem is most suitable in any case, this is to say that a high self-esteem would always imply pride and a low self-esteem would imply shrewd and may not achieve its full potential. Hence, it is very important to always maintain balance as a lot of people will lose opportunity(ies) because they are not noticeable and others will also lose opportunity for been too haughty.
There is a little/constant judge the creator implanted on all humans, this judge is our conscience, when we become haughty, noticeable and proud our little judge pricks at us mildly, also when we become shrewd or too weird, we also get pricked by our little judge. Hence, this little judge is what we must satisfy always and at all times.

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