What Is Self-Esteem?

Self-esteem, an innate human trait, is rarely taken as it was designed for: for the betterment of human beings. We usually misperceive it when we talk about overly confident, overly shy, overly reluctant or overly energetic people around us. We generally think that self esteem has anything to do with our body, education, status whether it is social or personal, and well being over all. Although all of these definitions of self-esteem are not totally wrong rather proves true in many matters of life. We all need a perfect level of self esteem in our lives to go ahead with competence, confidence, respect, self worth, and a great sense of self acceptance. We could not ignore all these factors of self-esteem when we discuss it in detail.

The self-esteem, here, I am concerned and want to draw your attention towards that feeling we all possess from birth. It cannot be learnt from different techniques rather we are already equipped with it. Have you seen a new born baby denying a feed due to having some trouble around? Have you seen a baby stressing upon a specific thing to play with and leaving all your options behind? Have you seen any child making fuss for her favorite food/toy/game while arguing that she is not ready to have any compromise at this point? Very young babies show their likes and dislikes, they are very much focused on their choice and are not convinced for other options easily. Parents, sometimes, use different kind of threats to mold their choice but children usually accept any threat and show no fear at all. Almost all children show this kind of self-respect and self-esteem in their life at some point. Parents have to submit their will in front of their children. All these are the examples of self-esteem that protects us in the most beautiful way since the time of our birth.

Why the babies are not aware of their weak and tiny bodies? Why they think they know everything (or at least they do not think that they know nothing)? Why babies are not aware of the fact that their survival is dependent on their parents? They have simply no idea how tiny they are or how much weak their bodies are? All these things, a baby need not to understand and this is a great blessing indeed. Nature wants us to live with confidence, self respect, self esteem and self worth. We need such food the most when we are babies. Our development must not be interrupted by things like fear, anxiety, and depression ( the things that cause low self-esteem in other words).

So we all possess a great sense of self-esteem since our birth and that helps us grow in a healthy emotional environment. We all maintain our level of self-esteem till the time we start analyzing facts and causes thoroughly. When our learning emerges and our thoughts take shape, we start making beliefs and concepts. This is the time when we encounter with our low or high self-esteem or its related problems. And we usually face lots of self-esteem issues at around our teenage. After that it is the never ending story of self-esteem that all of us suffer from.

To conclude, It is very important to maintain a healthy level of self-esteem and to protect our self-esteem at any stage, at any cost and for any cause we keep. We need not to compromise our level of self-esteem in any matter of life, otherwise our overall development would be highly affected. The most interesting fact in this regard is that we all are unconsciously maintaining our self esteem to protect our emotional and physical selves. At the same time, to keep our self-esteem healthy and high is our moral responsibility and is as important as food.
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