Tee Yaps

A good kid is someone who strives for the approval of adults. Adults are more important than they are. So they must strive please them to feel important. And meet their expectations. Failure to do so may result in dissapointment and condemnation.

Their whole childhood is based on meeting the approval of adults. Parent, teachers, coaches, mentors etc.

This is good.

Children lack the ability to make good decisions. So they need adults to guide them

But even into adulthood, they continue to strive for the approval of others. their bosses.

But as an adult, you are equipped with the tools to make your own decisions. You have a fully developed brain, and the cognitive skills to make good judgements.

Still though, your decisions are based around the approval of others. A decision going against societal beliefs may castrate you. That feeling of dissaproval is good as a kid.

But as an adult you need to look past your feelings. it should not guide you. Approval from others is not how you should base your decisions. This is human nature to be a part of the group.

But this is not becoming of a man. A man does not give as much weight to his emotions. He needs to make the right decisions regardless of recieving backlash and dissapproval from others.

By programming you to strive for the approval of others, society teaches you to be less important. The approval that you seek from the people and institutions you feel are above you, are, in your mind, more important.

Selfishness is discouraged and condemned. But isn’t it reasonable to believe that you are important?! Shouldn’t your priorities and goals take precedence, in YOUR life.

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is how you view yourself. If you believe you are really important, then you have high self-esteem.

We focus too much on how others view us. (I fall into this trap when my ego has been bruised, I realized recently.) We’ll call this others-esteem.

But with self-esteem, you don’t have to build it by doing anything spectacular or important. Its just a belief you have about yourself. Your existence is simply enough to believe you are important.

Society tells you, you have to have X amount of money to be important, you have to be amazingly attractive, you have to be unbelievably charismatic, you have to have a college degree, and have been 10 years into your career, you have to have a big house etc. You have to be 6ft tall. lean, muscles etc.

I will speak personally, I think i make good money, im decently attractive, alhumdulilah, I am decent at connecting with people, im more educated than most. It is probably because of these things I feel important.

My self-esteem has been built by meeting these qualifications I would say. it has been built around people deeming me important, But now that I meet these, I realize I do not need these things to be important.

If i have a belief about myself, I try to convince everyone around me that I have this belief about myself. Its ironic because one quality i try to convince people I have is that, I do not care what people think about me. But me trying to convince people of that is literally me caring about what people think.

My opinion of myself should not be dependent on what other people think about me. It should not bother me that people misjudge me. I really don’t care about people liking me/ or disliking me. Alhumdulilah,

One thing I do care too much about is my respect, and not being seen as a weak man. I do not think I am for the most part. But i think when someone sees me as weak it really bothers me. I feel the need to prove that I am not, in whatever capacity, even violence.

I just need to assure myself that I am not and keep it pushing. Easier said than done. It eats at my soul everytime this happens, but I am getting better.