The dearth of self esteem
Why are there so many people with a horribly negative self image?
I have been noticing how many beautiful people (being a single 28-year-old heterosexual man, especially noticing women!) are living a life hamstrung by their negative self-image. Sometimes that negative self-image leaves a talented, beautiful and charming artist unwilling to bless the world by letting her talents shine, instead avoiding competition and distracting herself with alcohol, drugs and sex. Other times it leaves a brilliant mind so overwhelmed with structured activity (with university, work, church, family responsibilities and volunteering in her 'spare' time) - being productive, but not allowing herself the time to really deal with the issues that matter - that she is left being busy to the point of exhaustion without making progress. Still other women will immerse themselves in their work, using their sense of achievement or perhaps contribution to grant themselves the vain hope that future external validation will overcome their lack of inner worth.
Men do it too... often using work, power, sex, alcohol and other drugs to distract themselves from their lack of self-acceptance. While achievement is great - and I believe that sex is an essential part of the continuation of the species - surely we are not placed upon this earth to merely exist as nodes of interaction within a complex chaotic system. Whether you believe that God created us, that we are the product of immense probabilities becoming inevitable over an infinite time period, or whatever the source, surely happiness and peace must be part of the plan.
Every spiritual path offers peace... how does our Affluenza-infested world run by psychotic corporations help us actually live a life of peace and fulfillment?
So many women long for a Mr Darcy without ever believing that they are worthy of one... though this is but a symptom of a larger problem.
(Thanks heaps for your help, Helen :D)
posted by Daniel @ 11:56 pm
1 Comments:
What you mention I think is a shift in the identity of men and women. In the 1950's the gender differences were somewhat subdued. The man went to work and the woman stayed at home and looked after the children. Unlike the 1950's, we now see more children enter Childcare Centres and both parents work to make money. What has happened to the nuclear family? Over the years, the Grandparents lived in the family home or lived in their own home with their adult children visiting them and offering support where necessary. This has slowly given away to Grandparents now being placed more and more in retirement homes and depending on their mental abilities what level of care is most appropriate for them. Children used to be safe when they went to school and would come home to their mothers who would ensure they were well fed and tended too. Today, children see very little of their parents in a closer sense and I feel we are creating an 'insular' society where children see their parents as adults they don't really understand. They are placed in Childcare Centres and surrogate parents act as minders in child care centres. Does this create a sense of distance between children and their parents? Furthermore, the family unit has given away to both parents now working and women and men now more in competition with each other in terms of providing an income in a dollar driven society. As a society you need to ask the question, what effects if any has feminism created in our modern society and is it to blame for men and women losing perhaps their image and identity? Like you I am a hetrosexual man and I feel in a lot of young women a great loss in really understaning love and commitment. I see more of an experiment rather than a commitment and it the sense of feeling does not surface. What has happened to our world and where is community and good old fashioned values? What is the future going to hold for the future of our children etc?
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