Lowish Self-Esteem: You’re Fired, Effective Immediately

I’ve been poisoned.

I’ve been poisoned from within and from without — the exact mix is both unclear and irrelevant — but I’ve been poisoned nonetheless.

For 46 years and counting, I have wrestled with lowish self-esteem — with self-esteem that isn’t as low as it could be, thank God, but is on the low side just the same. I don’t know where it comes from; that, too, is unclear and irrelevant, though to me it’s a curiosity worth pondering. All I know is that self-esteem has been a problem for me. More than a mere problem, really. It’s the chasm separating who I am now from who I want to be, who I can be, who I will be. Though it has improved considerably over the years, it has still infiltrated my ways of thinking, doing, and being, all for the worse. It is 100 percent negative. It has no endearing or redeeming qualities. It is not impressive in the least; it is depressive and repressive, to me as well as to the people who care about me (who clearly pick up on its existence in me).

Perhaps worst of all, lowish self-esteem is an illusion in my case; it’s not even real in my soul. When I ask myself, in my heart of hearts, whether my new book — The Introvert Manifesto — is any good and if it will succeed, the true answer I give is “yes” in both cases. When I ask myself, in my heart of hearts, whether my emerging relationship with my girlfriend Adrianne is one I’m worthy of and one that will last, the true answer I give is “yes” in both cases. When I ask myself, in my heart of hearts, whether my kids are healthy and happy with me as their sole parent one year after their mother’s death at the hands of cancer, the true answer I give is “yes” in both cases.

So my lowish self-esteem is, technically speaking, rubbish. What I’m really dealing with is a bad layer of sludge surrounding a healthy core.

But it’s still there. And trust me: as a life management strategy, it is ineffective.

I’ve been trying to get my hands around my lowish self-esteem issue for decades, generally relying on my No. 1 source of learning — books — but also talking it over with loved ones, friends, colleagues, and even counselors. I always figured that The Answer was out there somewhere. And all of my intellectual legwork has indeed helped me to some degree. I’ve learned new ways of thinking that have resulted in new ways of feeling and acting, which in turn have left me with more self-confidence now than I’ve ever had.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize that the only reason I need to get my hands around my lowish self-esteem problem is so that I can choke its lights out — so that I can kill it by my own hand. Because low self-esteem, I’m convinced, can’t really be cured. It must be eradicated. Destroyed. Taken out. And you can’t staff this task out to anyone or anything else. Other people — especially your closest loved ones — can’t do this one for you. (In fact, they’re silently praying you’ll do the deed yourself — for you and for them.) Books, workshops, and other outside entities can’t do it either.

In my own case, I must be the one who sends my own lowish self-esteem packing, once and for all. And I must do so in a way that is permanent, memorable, and constructive in its destructiveness. In a way that will remind me later, when I will inevitably need reminding: “No worries, Pete. You exterminated the lowish-self-esteem parasite. You don’t have to understand it. It’s dead. Gone forever. You rid yourself of it once and for all.”

So, lowish self-esteem: I hereby sentence you to … death.

Join me as I ceremonially burn my lowish self-esteem to smithereens. C’mon. It’ll only take four minutes:

http://youtu.be/yEZEXmGA8LQ

For the record, I won’t be keeping the remnants of these books. Once the fire burned out, I threw the whole shebang into the garbage. Not the recycle bin — normally I recycle my paper! — but in the garbage bin where it belongs. I don’t need a mound of seared book pages sitting around to remind me that I whacked my lowish self-esteem. The ritual itself is all I need(ed).

Will I still wrestle with self-esteem issues from time to time? Of course; I’m only human. But just as the books I burned had chapters that eventually ended, so too am I ending this particular chapter of my life.

Goodbye, lowish self-esteem. And good riddance. I don’t care anymore whether I understand you or not. I’m done with you. You’re the one who’s not good enough. You’re fired, effective immediately.

On to the next chapter.

Peter Vogt

I’m a writer. An essayist, to be more exact. I tell stories here—true stories, from my own life, in hopes they will make a positive difference in yours.

I share laughs and tears, insights and observations, frustrations and realizations, relying all the while on the storytelling wisdom of Julia Cameron, author of The Right to Write.

It is a great paradox that the more personal, focused, and specific your writing becomes, the more universally it communicates.