It's Time to Burn Those Self-Esteem Posts

I'm on Facebook, browsing through my Newsfeed, and then I get bombarded by all of these posts telling me one thing:

YOU. THINK ABOUT YOU. YOU'RE IMPORTANT. YOU'RE SPECIAL. YOU'RE LOVED. YOU DON'T NEED ANYONE ELSE BUT YOURSELF.

There are plenty of people who struggle with self-esteem and self-confidence.  And I'm sure that these people really find these types of posts encouraging.

But I think some of them need to get burned.

I use the word burned not to insinuate violence but to mean disappear without a trace.  They need to leave and take their influence with them.  I want them incinerated.

I'm being overly opinionated, and I might not be right.  I have to admit that I don't really know what it feels like to lack confidence in myself.  In fact, I should probably distributing some of my confidence to other people; I have too much for just one person.

BUT I still feel like I have a point here.

If I were going to encourage someone who has low self-esteem...

I wouldn't tell her to find her happiness in herself.

I wouldn't tell him to focus on what he wants.

Why?  I feel like those statements taken out of context and spoken generally to all these random people on the Internet are dangerous.

These statements need to be saved for specific situations and said in person to certain people. 

If I were going to encourage someone with low self-esteem...

I would tell her that the best way to find confidence in herself is to learn about who made her and how much He loves her.

I would suggest that he give of himself because giving never fails to make you feel great.

I would encourage her to stop focusing on herself.  Sometimes when we spend so much time focusing on ourselves, we lose sight of what's important.  It's easier to see how special we are when we aren't obsessing over it.

Trying to encourage the esteem challenged with more "ME" is counterproductive.  If we keep telling them to try harder by looking inward, we could easily lose them to the sea of self-importance, which will more often than not let us down.

What will not let us down is living for others.  Living for something bigger than ourselves.  Living for ourselves hampers us; "me" is too small of a thing to live for.  You run out of content before the end.

"Them" is a much bigger thing to live for.  There's infinite content in "others". 


Soli Deo Gloria.


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