SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-CONTROL, AND MENDING FLAWS

The theme of Saturday evening’s sermon, honoring our celebration of Independence, was self-esteem. Of course this psychologist sat up and took notice. These are my reactions. Tragically, the concept has been badly misunderstood in the past decades! The result – narcissism, depression, inability to solve problems, poor appreciation of criticism, and probably more. Genuine self-esteem - based on self-efficacy – is developed by encouragement and recognition of one’s strengths, observation of one’s weaknesses, and the provision of tools for improvement. Or, as Adlerians are wont to say, having the willingness to be perfectly imperfect. 

Instead, too much parenting and education has protected developing individuals from any sense of imperfection, thereby encouraging an inflated and inaccurate sense of one’s worth, lack of tools for dealing with disappointment by self-modification, reacting instead with blaming and striving to correct and control others. Early in my own education and teaching, the value of tests and papers was the pointing up of errors and suggested correction, often painful, but accepted as part of the strengthening of one’s knowledge. By the time I retired from teaching, the goal for many students had become getting an A, anything less, in their opinion, being the instructor’s fault for failing to recognize their worth.

Basic to healthy self-esteem is the courage to recognize one’s own flaws and gain control over them. In summary, if we really love someone or something, we are willing to see it’s correctible faults and point them out, with hope for a strengthening of the honesty, integrity, self-control and consequent power of the object of our affection. Last evening we sang “America the Beautiful” which includes the words: “God mend thine every flaw; Confirm they soul in self-control…”