Sometimes, as everyone has, I have a low self esteem day. Usually they come about out of thoughts of inadequacy for some reason - my two most common are "not pretty enough" (fairly common I think) or "came from a boring culture" (this probably arises from having a very eclectic group of friends, all who have some kind of background they can share - I represent the just Canadian, whatever that means). One way I've discovered to bust out of these spiralling downward type of thoughts is to think of my parents and then feel guilty... motivating me to think positively and thus allowing me to forget my grievances and be thankful for what I have. To deny my own beauty is to say to my my mom "mom your genetics are ugly!" which is obviously not the case. I come from a long line of good looking! To think I am from a boring culture is to tell my dad I am ungrateful for everything he's taught me and the experiences my family has had together. My parents are definitely not ugly, so how could any combination of them come out that way? Everyone is unique and I am no exception. I represent a combination of two different people's DNA, a miracle that it could happen at all. I grew up and had my own experiences just as my friend's did. My parents and family taught me what they know and what they've learned through their lives as Canadians. In conclusion, when I notice myself falling into a low self esteem cycle I think of my family and how they would feel if they knew I had those thoughts. It's like a kick in the butt - or a voice telling me to stop being so ungrateful and think of how thankful I am for my parents and how much I love them.
This thought has further intrigued me to wonder what the results of a study on the differences in self esteem in individualistic cultures and collectivist cultures are... a small amount of research in this area revealed that it seems as though collectivist cultures are more likely to avoid "self - enhancement" behaviours while individualistic cultures score higher in this area... hmmm is this blog evidence I come from a individualistic culture? Here a link to a text regarding cultural effect on personality, etc. HERE
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