So lately I have been seeing many self esteem videos and people who lack thereof and I just can’t shake this off.
It made me think about the one thing most people ask, but don’t ask the right person.
Am I good enough? Or was I good enough?
But to whom?
Right now, I’m talking about to the parents.
As a child you are just shaping who you want to be. You work your way up to “what you wanna be when you grow up” and you look up to people.
When you become a young adult, you are still exploring life as brand new changes occur.
As an adult, you become wiser as you age and look back at your childhood and it’s like looking through a magnifying glass or a crystal clear mirror.
If you’re anything like me, you had the parent that was verbally abusive. Always yelling at you for no reason!
Then again, everyone’s childhood is different. I wish I had the 2 parent household with a home I can grow up in and just be a child. One can dream right?
Sooooo you push yourself to do better, to become better! To show them that you are better than what they see or what they once were. Some never notice though.
At least that was me! As an adult now, I realized what I was doing my entire life. It was probably a foolish thing to do. I realized I was the kid that was trying to be impressionable in class; constantly raising my hand and answering some questions when we were doing the English section because I wanted to be one of those good students. 😛
I would strive to be the teachers’ pet in almost all my classes in elementary school because I wanted to be noticed.
Not to toot my own horn but from 3rd to 6th grade, I pretty much was haha. (Yay me)
But it was all due to my hard work. I worked hard on the essays, the participation and I did ALL of my homework.
Go figure! Did that make me a nerd?
However, lately I don’t talk to any of my family members sooo I ask myself if I was really doing all these things because I wanted to scream at my mother, “it’s okay! I am my own individual. I can’t control what happens to you, but I can control myself.”
I wanted her to see the good in me, and I had no real reason why. Even now, I still feel some resentment towards me. But it’s not effective anymore. *Shrugs shoulders*
My mother went to all my parent-teacher conferences knowing that she didn’t need to be there, but I pressured her to because I wanted her to hear that her child, the student, was doing a great job in school. Since she neverrrrrrrr asked!
I will admit that she didn’t pressure me to do anything. I wasn’t forced into after school programs, I wasn’t forced to work at the age of 14. Nothing.
Was it worth the fight? Fight meaning with my internal self as a little small handed girl raising and waving it for attention.
The answer to that is no.
Where I’m going with this is as children without knowing we aim to please the parents so they can be proud. We aim to admire them. Our opinions don’t matter until we show them that we care about them.
At some point it fades. I had to grow up pretty early, so I phased out of that once I was about 15.
Here is a really good link based on my topic from “The Baggage Reclaim”!
http://www.baggagereclaim.co.uk/im-not-good-enough-the-world-through-a-low-self-esteem-lens/
As I think about the children of the future, the technology children I must add (haha) I see that some of them lack the same good enough attention that people like me have looked for. These days, they don’t care. They prefer tablets over making conversations or phone with friends over telling their parent how good school was today.
I just don’t understand the shift! But I guess I can respect it. Live a little bit less stress free!
We, Us, Them, They, must all remember that we must be good enough for ourselves first! The 20s are hard as you try to find a career or a good job that is going to make it for you to have a home with no stress. Parents are no longer included in this one because you have showed them all that you could.
Right now, I am taking care of me. I think I’m doing pretty good, how about you? 🙂
I think the affects of this portion of low self esteem causes you to unintentionally slide the same issues into a relationship. Will you be good enough for your mate? Are you right now? How to improve, etc etc.
It only takes self help and the good talk of friends to know you are worth it. A support system goes a long way. You are more than good enough.
You are great! If you have nieces, cousins, nephews and more who feels this way make sure to let them know that as well! ❤
I wouldn’t be me, if as the music junkie that I am, I don’t have a music reference perfect for this! (Plus I also love entertaining people. So here’s a little entertainment!)
When this song was performed and featured on the show Empire by Jussie Smollett, it spoke so many words to me!
The first verse is the teenage me:
“I gave you all of me
But it still ain’t enough to make you happy
I gave you everything
It still don’t measure up
It feels like I walked 5 thousand miles
And didn’t even come close
Feels like I try to make you smile
But you don’t even care, no”
Shade But No Shade is now on Facebook! Catch Shade anytime of the day at https://www.facebook.com/shadebutnoshade!
Shade But No Shade 
Looks like me and you think alike, because when I was reading this post I read the first 11 lines and immediately thought of including Jussie Smollett’s Good Enough song as a link with my comment; but you beat me to it. LOL 😀 Now on a more serious note, I am so incredibly proud of how far you’ve come in your ability to be so open with your readers. I also appreciate the small but significant glimpse of details about your personal life that you share with us. When it comes to the topic of being “Good Enough” its like you said, it varies on the context in which your addressing. No matter if we’re talking about parenting, relationships among mates or friends, or just being good enough to get that new job, or accepted into your dream school; we all fight for acceptance in one way or another at some point in our lives. For me, the topic of being “Good Enough” is a personal one in which I struggled with daily for decades and to some extent still do. As you already may or may not know, I’m view myself as being a bit different from everyone else in the world, and as time has shown me, so does the world. Being good enough has been a question I’ve asked myself over and over again, in almost every aspect of life. Am I good enough to play football, join your crew, get married, get the job, teach others, go out with her, get accepted in to this school, be your friend, get noticed, being rewarded, etc. the list goes on for centuries. I’ve found that over the years what I was really asking for was for acceptance from other people, places, and things, when what I should have been asking for was do I accept myself. Insecurities, low-self esteem, and lack of confidence are negative attributes one creates in the mind of themselves, due to lack of motivation, support, and assurance. This goes back to what I said about parenting in the other post a few posts ago, as parents its our jobs to install these positive attributes in our children from an early age, and continue to do so until adulthood. The saying “She get it from her mother” goes to show as kids we primarily have our parents/guardians to look up to, to learn from, and help prepare us for the life ahead. If we grow up in bad homes, or households that lack the right amount of motivation, support, and assurance, then we’ll grow to lack the confidence necessary to avoid such (particular) feelings/experiences. Today kids are creations of tomorrow’s hope; if we don’t plan ahead (teach them better) then the future as we know it, might be compromised. #ItStartsAtHome
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Whew!! Well said well said! Great minds think alike! You said pretty much what I was aiming for and more. Thank you as well 🙂 I’m glad you are opening up as well. #SpreadtheWord
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