LOW SELF-ESTEEM

It used to be called MODESTY, HUMILITY or perhaps DECENCY

Now it is regarded as a WEAKNESS, a STIGMA or even a NEUROSIS needing

counselling and psychotherapy.

BUT IS IT A CURSE OR A BLESSING? A STRENGTH OR A WEAKNESS?

How to interpret the passionate desire to help humanity? To serve others?

Did Captain Oates suffer low self-esteem when he gave his life at the South
Pole to save his team? Or Florence Nightingale in the trenches during the 1 st
World War? Or Captain Cook who risked all to discover Australia?

We are now taught We must love ourselves in order to love others. But self-
love, narcissism and pride were once seen as a weakness. And KNOW
THYSELF the only prescription of Apollo: pragmatic, realistic, self-accepting.
Jung believed that every light creates a shadow, and the foolish infatuations
of self-love the most dangerous.

BUT THERE IS A DANGER IN LOW SELF ESTEEM. When Life delivers a series of
slaughtering blows the humble self-effacing soul may see this as correction
and submit. For only a healthy ego can survive. Christians may go under in
self-sacrificing zeal while others present a lethal ability to conquer Fate.
Until they die a painful death perhaps?

(copyright e.j.ward 2022)