Chapter 4 - The Illusion of Self-Esteem

Note to the reader: This is chapter 4 of an 11 part series of notes / important ideas gathered from my reading of The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden.

When Self-Esteem Is Low

We are often manipulated by fear, when our self-esteem is low. Fear of reality, fear of facts about ourselves or others. Fear of exposure. Fear of the humiliation of failure, and fear of the responsibilities that success brings. We live to avoid pain, rather than to experience joy.

Note that self-esteem does not determine our thinking. Rather, self-esteem influences our emotional incentives.

Our feelings tend to encourage or discourage thinking, to draw us towards facts, truth, and reality, or away from them - towards efficacy or away from it.

The first steps towards building healthy self-esteem can be difficult. We are challenged to break old patterns of behavior - in the face of fear and serious self-doubt. We need to challenge old behaviors caused by blindness to reality, and that can be a struggle.

It becomes even more difficult because often - choosing to remain blind or passive implies not needing to take any risks or to take any actions - which is the easy choice. Unfortunately such choices do influence our self-esteem, and our self-image.

The danger is that we will become the prisoners of our negative self-image. We allow it to dictate our actions. We define ourselves as mediocre, or weak, or cowardly or ineffectual and our performance reflects this definition.

Again we see the idea that poor self-esteem is driven by fear, not confidence. Our actions are not influenced by a desire to live, but more of a desire to escape the terror of life. We do not seek to be creative or expressive, but rather desire safety and the familiar. What is desired most from others is not to experience real contact and connection, but a desire to be accepted, forgiven, taken care of, absolved from the need to think for ourselves.

If low self-esteem dreads the unknown and unfamiliar, high self-esteem seeks new frontiers. If low self-esteem avoids challenges, high self-esteem desires and needs them. If low self-esteem looks for a chance to be absolved, high self-esteem looks for an opportunity to admire.

We can say that an individual is healthy to the extent that the basic principle of motivation is that of motivation by confidence (love of self, love of life); the degree of motivation by fear is the measure of underdeveloped self-esteem.

Pseudo Self-Esteem

Sometimes we see folks who have achieved a great deal of success in life, but internally they feel empty, anxious and / or depressed. They project self-esteem in their accomplishments, but internally they lack it in some way.

Pseudo self-esteem is the illusion of self-efficacy and self-respect without the reality. It is a non-rational, self-protective device to diminish anxiety and to provide a spurious sense of security - to assuage our need for authentic self-esteem while allowing the real causes of its lack to remain unexamined.

The cause of pseudo self-esteem is the pursuit of values that have nothing to do that of healthy self-esteem. It is very common to pursue self-esteem in all the wrong places.

Instead of seeking self-esteem through consciousness, responsibility and integrity, we seek it through popularity, material acquisitions, or sexual exploits. Instead of valuing personal authenticity, we value belonging to the right clubs, or the right church or the right political party. Instead of practicing appropriate self-assertion, we may practice uncritical compliance to our particular group. Instead of seeking self-respect through honesty, we may seek it through philanthropy - I must be a good person, I do “good works”. Instead of striving for the power of competence (the ability to achieve genuine values), we may pursue the “power” of manipulating or controlling other people. The possibilities for self-deception are almost endless - all the blind alleys down which we can lose ourselves, not realizing that what we desire cannot be purchased with counterfeit currency.

Self-esteem is an intimate experience. It is what I think and feel about myself. It has nothing to do with what someone else thinks or feels about me. The source of genuine self-esteem is and can only be internal. It is generated by what we do, not what others do. It is the judgment that I am appropriate to life, the experience of competence and worth. No one can generate and sustain this experience except myself.

Independence, Innovation and Creativity.

Proper human maturity can be defined as the prioritization of internal signals over external dependence and validation. The attainment of a healthy sense of self - a well developed system of internal support - has profound implications on innovation and creativity.

Innovators and creators are persons who can to a higher degree than average accept the condition of aloneness - that is, the absence of supportive feedback from their social environment. They are more willing to follow their vision, even when it takes them far from the mainland of human community.

That which we call “genius” has a great deal to do with independence, courage and daring - a great deal to do with nerve.