Mirror
Magazine 
|
||||
A
step of confidence \You
know that you’re moderately capable of handling any situation
at hand, like most of us. Let it be academic, aesthetic or related
to sports, you shoot the best, but sometimes your arrow misses the
target. And then, you feel really down. You feel guilty that you
couldn’t hit it right away, and start to blame yourself and
most often, others for your failures. Whatever the situation or
the reason, the feeling of failure leads to a state of low-self
esteem. Unfortunately, most of us give away our strength to low self-esteem, which robs our positive energy to thrive on challenges. Low self-esteem causes depression, unhappiness, insecurity and a lack of confidence. In cases of low self-esteem, others’ desires may take preference over yours and inner criticism, that nagging voice of disapproval inside you, causes you to stumble at every challenge. But the good news is that lack of motivation happens to us all!! This is because we all face the same or at least similar dilemmas in life. But what make some of us smarter than others are our attitudes towards happenings, and our response towards setbacks. “Self-esteem is about taking yourself into confidence. It’s about being proud of yourself with a sense of humility, knowing one has the capacity for original, innovative and creative thinking. It means the capacity one has as a thinking human being,” says Dr. Mahim Mendis, Head of the Department of Social Studies and Senior Lecturer of Communications at the Open University of Sri Lanka, adding, “In Sri Lankan society, many young people lack self-esteem. They have become imitators. As a result, they don’t have independent minds. They depend on the government to provide jobs for them, and they depend on their elderly parents to survive, sometimes on their pension money.” Says Dr. Mendis, “When we look at the problem in the context of sociology, we categorise things as ‘social institutions.’ Family is a social institution. Religion is a social institution. Education is also a social institution. If it’s on a macro level, the government is a social institution. And on a micro level, the individual is a social institution. When the basic social institutions, whether it is on micro or macro levels collapse, then the self-esteem of the individual will collapse with it.” “If we take, for example, the education system in our country, it has not been very successful, as it cannot produce independent thinkers. One of the reasons is that there is always a gap between the teacher and the student. But it’s not the same anywhere. In some systems, students and teachers are equal partners in learning. It’s not imitation, and if we are not successful, we should try to learn from those people who have succeeded. As a result of not following the one who has succeeded, Third World countries are affected by not only monetary poverty, but attitudinal poverty as well,” says Dr. Mendis, explaining the collapse of self-esteem. Says Dr. Mendis, “Self-esteem also comes from an independent mindset. What we have in our country is a dependent mindset created by overprotective parents. Parents think that their children cannot handle themselves with responsibilities. They believe that if they let their children cross the road without any help, passing vehicles might knock them down. They think that if they grant freedom to their children, they would misuse it. So they choose a career for their children, since they think their children might lose track in the career paths as well as with life partners. Children living in such situations do the same with their children, and this cycle is passed down from generation to generation. In these cases, children have a choice about convincing their parents on matters concerning them, without blindly accepting them. If the children are wrong, parents can advise and guide them without pushing the children to make a decision that they (parents) want.” |
||||
Copyright © 2001 Wijeya Newspapers
Ltd. All rights reserved. |
