Can I Live with Myself? - Part 2

-contd from Part 1

Accepting Oneself / Self-acceptance

In terms of definition of "Self-acceptance" the Wikipedia mentions it as:

• being aware of one's strengths and weaknesses
• the realistic (yet subjective) appraisal of one's talents, capabilities, and general worth, and,
• feelings of satisfaction with one's self despite deficiencies and regardless of past behaviors and choices.

According to Shepard (1979), self-acceptance is an individual's satisfaction or happiness with oneself, and is thought to be necessary for good mental health. Self-acceptance involves self-understanding, a realistic, albeit subjective, awareness of one's strengths and weaknesses. It results in an individual's feeling about oneself, that they are of "unique worth".

If that is what the definition is - how many of us are really accepting ourselves?

When it comes to be aware of one's strengths and weaknesses, how are we going to define strength and weaknesses? Again it comes to the definitions what society has given us and which are made in such a way that it will be in comparison to someone or something and will eventually lead one to judge and make to live someone else's definition of a lie.

In satisfying someone's definition of strength and weakness we have humiliated ourselves so much that we lost our self-esteem. Some, succumb to this lie so much that when they cannot achieve this "someone else's lie" they make suicidal attempts. Now if we question again - how much it is wise to live someone's definition of a lie as a success, strength or a weakness?

Here I would like to quote Albert Einstein's words "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

So, in this game of life didn't our parents anticipated that we being a fish, they wanted us to climb a tree?, and are we also not doing the same thing with our children and then pass on the same lie to the next generation?

We need to stop this process of "passing the lies" generations-after-generations somewhere and make the next generation more evolved and make them responsible to define what is success, strength and weakness for themselves. We can help them in facilitating the journey of thinking being contemporaneous and wise as per their present needs and definitely not wants or desires or what the so called marketing people want to sell.

-to be contd in part 3