How the self-esteem craze took over America (2017)
Having adopted a lot of quasi Buddhist frames in recent years, I increasingly look in askance at the self esteem framework.<p>A friend was going through a crisis of confidence in their professional life, and was basically saying, I think I’m not a good psychologist, and the fact that I “wasted” 10 years training for this makes me want to kill myself.<p>Their buddhist teacher (In practice, a therapist, and also by education the teacher is literally a therapist) responded: so what if you’re not good at being a psychologist? What if it’s true? Isn’t it better to know?<p>Being emotionally invested in our specialness&#x2F;abilities&#x2F;whatever is a trap, because we’re not special, we all have deep limitations in our capabilities. Whatever you’re the best at: there are people better than you. There are people who are probably better than you at every single thing you do. So what? Part of the Sunday chanting service: “let us overcome the inferiority complex, the superiority complex, and the equality complex.”<p>None of which is to say we shouldn’t treat ourselves lovingly and with compassion. We definitely should, and it takes a lot of work and growth to do that, and pretending we’re not limited is a false solution.