Self Icecream

Been talking to a friend about self-esteem lately. Noticed a few people in the blogosphere dealing with this issue right now. Recently had an altercation with a neighbour about dogs and leashes, which really bugged me and made me lose my temper more than it should have. Anyways, I blame it all on the conjunction of high humidity, bathing suits, wrinkle lotion commercials, and ice cream.

It has got me thinking about the whole concept of self-esteem, though. I think I have arrived at a theory. Which I am visually representing here on PowerPoint slides.

Donations can be sent to Lameass Anonymous c/o The Royal Ottawa Hospital, Mental Ward IV, etc.

These are what I think might be the stages in the evolution of self-esteem as I see it. I'd be interested in people's thoughts on this. Do you agree with the stages? Have you experienced them? Which one are you at now? Do you think we go through them in cycles, maybe as we come into different periods of our lives where our sense of self is challenged? Do you care? Should I go back to reviewing movies from the 50s? Or writing about toast?

Phase I


Pretty self-explanatory. Your self-worth comes from how others treat you, how you think they feel about you, etc.






Phase II

Here's where we start to get a little Oprah, singing along with Whitney to "The Greatest Love of All" etc. You learn to treat yourself well, despite what anyone else says or does to you. This can be a good deflector of jerkish behaviour from others. But to me it doesn't really seem to be the 'ultimate' because, well, sometimes it takes us down the road to self-obsession.







Phase III
I haven't achieved this, by a long shot. But I really really admire people who have. This is where how you feel about yourself doesn't come from how others treat you, or how much 'me time' you take, but how you treat others. Maybe I'm not totally on the money on this one. What do you think?