There’s the age-old story of finding a lamp and once it is rubbed a genie appears, granting wishes. When playing the game of What Would You Wish we may think of the usual: cars, money, freedom from worry. What if we took our wish one step further to encompass all of these things? Should you ever come across the mythical genie and the captive bottle, do us all a favor and wish for a healthy dose of self-esteem for everyone.
We may see an end to domestic violence. A lack of self-esteem is one correlate in domestic violence in both victim and perpetrator. Those who hit do so because they must be in control due to insecurity; those who remain in abusive relationships do so because they have no self-esteem left. Spousal abuse trickles down to child abuse. An estimated 85% of abusers who hit their partners are raising children who will strike their own partners or/and enter into adult relationships of abuse. And children in abusive homes often leave the homes to become the schoolyard bully.
Giving a child self-esteem could stop bullying. A bully is created by a need for power and control in the bully’s own life. Mean children are mean for a reason: the trickle-down effect of abuse, misunderstood or misdiagnosed learning or psychological disorders, or because the pecking order society deals in the classroom that is acceptable unless changed by the school officials (the fat kid, the geek, etc.). A shot of healthy self-esteem may give a bully much deserved, missing self worth to turn negative energy into positive.
One factor in gang formation is the need for love and acceptance. In law enforcement, we see people killed and harmed because someone disrespected someone, either real or imagined: a rival gang member, a spurned lover, a person fired from a job he needed. On Tuesday night a man walked into a Pennsylvania gym and fired on innocent ladies because he felt unloved. Disregard other factors for a moment, such as mental instability and lack of values, and think of feelings: these people feel insecure so they take action. It is part of their makeup. Could self-esteem at least have curtailed their crime?
Imagine the possibilities in art, medicine, construction, engineering, law enforcement, and finance if, today, just one class of little first graders all said, “I can do it!” And believed it. Of course there would be failures. People with healthy self-esteem fail but they keep trying. They know failure is possible, but the failure does not define them. This is a mark of good esteem. Arrogance is not self-esteem; rather, it is the opposite. Those with healthy self-esteem show it, for they are at a good place and want others to be there, too.
Self-esteem gives us the power to step forward and say, “I can.” It makes us raise our hands to volunteer first, be the one to try, the one to dare. Think of the pioneers, the daredevils. The Amelia Earharts who didn’t care women “weren’t supposed to.” Self-esteem keeps us motivated and creates teamwork by drawing others to us. How many people have had a great idea but stopped because “it probably won’t work”? Thomas Edison worked 50 years to create the incandescent light bulb: 3,000 attempts. The Wright Brothers made hundreds of endeavors to master the air before their successful launch at Kitty Hawk. If these three men would have said, “we can’t,” “we’re stupid,” “there’s no way,” you’d be reading this by candlelight and planning where to walk for vacation!
What else would a healthy dose of self-esteem do for a family, the neighborhood, and the world? There is no genie in a bottle. We have to start doing instead of magically waiting for it to happen (this is why we love magic – it “just happens”). Rather than asking the genie, ask yourself … and then make it happen.
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