New Year’s Resolution
What’s the One and Only New Year’s Resolution
That People With Low Self-Esteem Should Make?
This is the time of year — and pretty much the only time of year — when the plural noun “resolutions” comes into frequent usage. Suddenly every blog, magazine and TV talk show exhorts us to make some.
But as well-intended as those exhortations are, the very notion of resolutions is at heart problematic for anyone who struggles with low self-esteem.
What, after all, is a resolution? A vow to change oneself for the better. And what, after all, is low self-esteem? A prolonged state of delusion whose main message and nonstop narrative is: “You’re totally unbearable the way you are, so change this about yourself and change that about yourself and, by heavens, if you hope for even the faintest chance to become even marginally likable, employable and/or otherwise acceptable, then you must devote every effort to changing how you look, act, talk, walk, eat and do everything else.
“Change,” command our inner critics, in trigger-pulling tones rising from singsongy taunting to spit-spraying shouting. “Change, change, CHANGE.”
Not change as opportunity or change for variety or or change for fun or change to feel better. Not change to expand your horizons, but rather (and always, and only) change to eradicate the horrible self that you currently are and pretty much always have been. Change or stay horrible. What? Are you quaking hesitantly in the face of these imprecations regarding the massive changes required to render you even marginally OK? Click HERE to continue-
