The base for the human being

By Maria Inês Felippe*

Self-esteem is the opinion and the feeling that each person has. Think about it... What grade do you give yourself from zero to ten? Eight, seven, five, three? Uh, I got it. Self-esteem means being aware of your personal value, it’s to believe, respect and trust yourself, to know how you see yourself as a person, how you recognize your strength and weaknesses.

This is all directly connected to those positive or negative words we have heard since childhood. A secret, some critics that you heard when you were a child or a teenager might be today your greatest virtue, think about it. For instance: You are stubborn. Maybe your stubbornness is your greatest virtue.

As Stretut said: "When men fail it isn’t due to lack of intelligence, but passion: several times we fall in love with somebody else, with our work and we tend to live according to the other, to what people expect from us, to what roles society impose to us, but... what about you? Are you in love with yourself? When you have to face some critics what do you do? Do you consider your attitudes? Do you recognize you are just a human being? Do you become arrogant? How do you bear other people’s mistakes? Do you accept them?

Arrogance, on the other hand, might be high self-esteem that does not allow us to see reality when we live in an imaginary world. Self-observation allows us to understand these turbulent and strong feelings.

Self-esteem, together with inner love and emotional intelligence is the base for the human being. They are the cure of all difficulties and pain. Our life is full of challenges and we must be centered, careful about ourselves and society, aware of feelings because they play an important role when taking personal decisions in life. Such decisions demand intuition, emotional knowledge and loyalty to ourselves. 

Driving emotions towards a goal is essential to keep us moving towards self-motivation. Besides, it stimulates our creative mind to search for solutions for a better life.

(*) Maria Inês Felippe is a lecturer, psychologist and specialist in human resources administration, besides the Vice-President of Creativity and Innovation at APARH.