Self-esteem was all the rage when I was in school, and I don't think it has lost any of its popularity amongst teachers, parents, coaches, and the political class. But it is one of those things, like organic chemistry, that I just never 'got.' Now I believe certain individuals are smart and talented enough to understand an actual science like o-chem, it is just a subject beyond me, whereas this self-esteem thing is beyond bafflement. I remember sitting in class, we actually had an entire semester dedicated to the study of this perplexing enigma, staring out the window, and wondering how someone could drone on for literally hours upon the subject, even as a fourteen year old, with no social skills or wider cultural awareness, I knew it was all just a bunch of nice sounding gibberish. It was a light, fluffy frosting on a cake, meticulously whipped, but after an hour, it just goes flat, tasteless, and makes the cake soggy.
Self-esteem is basically the art of feeling good about myself. Umm, okay, so in other words, vanity? The last thing any mortal living in the modern world needs right now is to be told yet again that they are the very center of the universe, and for no greater reason than that they exist. Then I go to biology and they tell me I'm an accidental mass of randomly produced atoms that will eventually cease to exist, as will the entire planet, when the sun blows up? So nothing really matters in the long run. Isn't there a little contradiction there? First period I am everything and second period I'm nothing? Which is it? No wonder modern teenagers are rather confused about 'life, the universe, and everything.'
I was one of those kids that probably could have benefited from self-esteem classes, if they actually had any foundation in reality. I had been taught from the very beginning that I was horrible, loathsome, and worthless, then along comes the self-esteem fairy that says I am special and wonderful just because I know how to breath. Well, fairy, where were you those hopeless nights I cried myself to sleep because my mother had just threatened to let me live in the street when I was neither a rebellious nor a disobedient child? It is just so much fluffy frosting and nothing more, the only problem is the cake is broken and hurting, but then, what does that matter, as I'm just going to disintegrate in a few decades anyway? Is there no middle ground? Nothing in between? Something that corresponds to this reality in which we find ourselves, a reality of mingled joy and sorrow, love and pain, hope and despair?
This is not a new question, it has been asked by every mortal who has ever walked under sun and moon, as Tolkien might say, "childless lords sat in…high cold towers asking questions of the stars." The ancient manuscript of Job puzzles over the reason for suffering and pain while Ecclesiastes tries to make sense of the meaning and purpose of life, both come to the strange conclusion that man is neither an accident nor an end unto himself, but that he was intentionally made yet not for his own enjoyment, but rather for the pleasure of his Maker. We have value, not because some sappy textbook says we do, but because we were intentionally and wonderfully made, our lives have a plan and a meaning and a purpose, yet we did not make ourselves, so we cannot boast over anything of which we are possessed or in who or what we are. And this is a freeing thought indeed: we are loved, not for who we are, but for Whose we are. I don't need to pretend anymore, or wonder if I can be good enough, or wonder if there is even a point to any of it: there is and I'm not, but He is.
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