Troy Dulles

Ch 2 Self
Create 2
In chapter two, it talks all about self and one thing in particular stood out to me: self-
esteem. This stood out to me because I struggled with it my whole life. Self-esteem is a lot like
confidence; it can either bring you up if you have it or bring you down for the lack of it. This has
an impact on how you act on a day to day basis. When I was in high school, I had a major
problem with self-esteem. Some days it was up and some days it was down; for the most part,
the days were long and emotion lacking. Going into college, I started to see a shift in my self-
esteem for the better. I was no longer struggling through the motions of life.
In this week's experiment, I decided to try and poke at others' sense of steem and see
where it would lead me. For instance, I would talk to people throughout the week that I knew on
a somewhat personal basis. By talking to them, you can easily tell if self-esteem is present or
not. One interaction that stood out in particular this week was when I bumped into a kid named
John that is in my sustainability class. I sparked up a conversation with him and immediately
could tell his emotions were slightly altered that day. After conversing for a while, I asked him if
he had ever struggled with any self-esteem issues and he told me yes. He told me that covid
messed with him and being isolated for a year really took a toll on him and his mental well
being.
This conversation allowed me to hack into John's inner self and build connections off of
that. John and I shared the connection of both struggling with self-esteem issues and working
through them built a true bond. The biggest thing I learned from this experiment was asking
people if they have self-esteem issues was not as easy as I thought it would be. I acted very
well but getting answers like that out of people is rare and hard; oftentimes it takes years to earn
that form of trust and connection. If I was to do this experiment again, I would not pick self-
esteem for it was too hard and awkward asking such an intimate and deep question.