What’s S E L F Esteem really?

— The M A G I C Mirror on the Wall!

"You’ll never be criticized by someone who’s doing more than you.
You’ll always be criticized by someone doing less.
Remember that!" — Denzel Washington

This profound quote really nails such a hidden gem of truth!!

Here's the thing!!!

Is it due to expectations not being met?Well! Expectations are "emotional landmines"!
In the sense, they are hard to detect.
And, its even harder steer clear of them!
Here’s how!
Detecting expectations is hard since its easy to confuse them with desires.
However, there’s a thin line between these two.
True desires are "unconditional" in nature, meaning if they aren’t met, one doesn’t lose hope.
In other words, one won’t be disheartened if a strategy hasn’t yielded the desired results.
What it implies is that one isn’t tied to getting results, subjugating one’s happiness.
And one strives for alternatives to accomplish results in some other ways.
Expectations on the other hand, are "conditional" in nature.
Conditional implies one isn’t happy until and unless one achieves the desired results.
Meaning, one is subjugating one’s happiness to the "expected" outcomes.
And one loses even peace of mind while striving for it.
One ends up feeling miserable about oneself if one fails, adversely affecting one’s confidence.
So, if one’s caught in the trap of expectations, here’s what could happen:

• ‌subjugating happiness
• ‌losing peace of mind
• ‌risking loss of confidence

All these consequences could come true since one’s emotionally tied to the outcomes.
At this stage one’s vulnerable to criticism, further demoralising one’s self esteem as well.
Now, someone who really has gone through this understands others struggling with such expectations.
Such a person truly cares for you by being empathetic with you while you’re struggling.

And empathy happens when one really immersed in the depth of one's struggle.

So, one can sympathise with the struggles to meet expectations.

Then proffer help on how to get over.

Conversely, criticism is the natural escape path for those who have not worked enough.

It could be directed at others or towards oneself.

What could be the trigger?

The popular fairy tale - "Snow White and the seven dwarfs" offers the clue!

Its most famous phrase brilliantly questions -
"Magic mirror on the wall!
Who’s the fairest of them all?"

And guess what?

The clue coming out is Self esteem!

The simple reason goes like this:

A physical mirror reflects your "visible" self.

Whereas "magic" mirror reflects your self esteem since it lets you see your own fairness!

If you're fair to yourself, you'll be fair to others as well!

In case you've "wrinkles", your view towards others too will have the same.

It gives rise to criticism due to not working on self's "wrinkles".

Low and / or high self esteem are such "wrinkles".

They could stem from the confused conditioning of taking others opinions too seriously.

It soon becomes a habit of either criticising self or others.

The truth is actually far from it.

So Self esteem is mostly confused as a M I S T A K E N reflection of S E L F as seen using others' words as the " M A G I C mirror" !