grow older better

Tag: emotional changes

Self-Esteem, Aging and Emotions

What is self-esteem?

Mostly it refers to our sense of self worth – how good we feel about ourselves and how we self-measure our value to society.

How we develop this sense of self worth is the story of psychological development.

Our feelings about ourselves come from our parents, friends, ourselves, teachers, life.

We see ourselves reflected in other people and other things – how we react to that assessment is the measure of our self-esteem.

If we see ourselves as less than others we are deemed to have low self-esteem.

If we have an internal sense of worth, not particularly tied to others, we are said to have good self-esteem.

The below quote from Einstein gives us a great thought about judging the development self-worth in ourselves or in others.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.

Does self-esteem change over time? Oh yea!

For good or for bad – we are in control of our self-esteem. But we must, as Einstein suggests, use the “right” criteria for how we judge ourselves. And we are capable of changing those criteria.

As kids, we are more prone to the emotional clues and criteria awe get at home …. and that can be good for us or bad for us depending on our family and our culture.

As we age, we learn [or should learn] to develop our own self-worth criteria – and we can undo what we learned from our parents.

All parts of us change as we age…isn't it great that we not "stuck" emotionally or in negative self-esteem?

It is good – because too many people never develop a solid internal set of self-worth criteria and tie their self-esteem to externals such as:

work
money
house
car
kids
sports
spouse

As we age, these above external ties change or disappear….

What happens when the tie is loosened or the tie is totally broken or lost?

We need to cope with the change!

More on this topic coming…. stay tuned.

Thoughts? Comments? Thank you

07/24/2012
Muses and Emotions: Is It Aging or Is It Me?
I woke up with this post in my head and I’m slowly learning to just “go with it.”

So I went with it

Over the years I’ve seen that I work in cycles of various lengths.

Jobs? Two years max!

Daily exercise at a club? About 1.5 years!

Regular worship attendance? Very varied so I guess it is never what you could call “regular.”

But writing? That’s one part of me with a cycle I cannot yet figure out. And after the last few weeks I am no longer trying to figure it out – I'm sort of just "accepting" it's cycle….[or whatever it has]

I just finished up an e-book about the 10 Commandments [a political snarky take on same] and I thought “wow! I’m on a roll with writing – let me finish up another of the ones I’ve started.” [There are more than a few.]

Bad idea. I could not put words to computer at all or even work at videos, etc. – instead I sniped at anyone who talked to me.

I was in a very foul mood and still I tried to write. It was not working at all and I was getting grouchier.

Then I basically said, “screw this” and decided to give up on writing about anything. It felt like a big defeat.

I took a staycation. I played computer games, read a whole lot of books, spent time on web browsers – mostly feeling like my own words had left my head forever.

But aha!

After 2 weeks, the muse came back. I am writing this, getting back to videos, and I working on material for a class I teach.

But that muse won’t touch e-books right now!

Lesson learned? My muse did not desert me.
- She needed a break.
- She too has a cycle – just like me.
Why did I not know this?
- Because when I was in my foul mood I was not thinking.
I'm not sure if it's part of an aging experience and emotional changes, if it's just me or just situational

2nd lesson learned? When in a foul mood – do not make major decisions about anything – and do not try to write!
06/12/2012
But I Don’t Know What To Do Or How To Do It!
When I talk to groups of people about being self-employed, it seems the older people in the audience may be a bit more afraid than younger folks about being self-employed.

It isn’t just older folks who can’t find jobs but we older ones have had many more years of being in someone else’s employ and may not have any real idea of what we can do or how we can do it.

Or we think we don’t know what to do or how to do it.

Or we may just be plain old scared!

We need to step out of our comfort zones and change our emotional attachment to jobs!

Think about it – you are out of a job because your job had NO emotional attachment to you!

I won’t go into a rant about businesses, outsourcing and greed here [I have another blog for that] but we have learned that if you are an employee, you can be let go at the drop of the proverbial hat.

We used to think that if we found a good job and worked hard, we would be taken care of for life. We’d have that job til we were 65, then we’d have a pension, continued health care coverage and also Social Security benefits.

This is no longer the case. Jobs have been lost, pensions gobbled up in the Wall Street mess and Social Security stuck in the mud.

If you weigh the scary scenarios – you might begin to think that trying your hand at being self-employed is not as scary as depending on a job or the government.

Yes. It can be scary! But it can also be freeing.

Imagine:
- making money from what you already know how to do.
- making money from a hobby you have loved for years
- getting up each day and seeing your income making activity as fun
- letting your creativity having free rein
Then imagine how your emotional self will feel when you earn that first real bit of money! Your self-esteem will sky rocket!!

You don't know what to do? Here's a suggestion:

Start right now and make a list of all the things you are good at.

Just let your brain run free and if you get stuck, ask your friends and family what they see you as good and great at doing.

And stay tuned for what to do with your list.
07/08/2011