from VIRUS to SELF-ESTEEM

I am not writing this as a psychology expert, I am writing this as a college student who, for almost 20 years, has been appropriating my own understanding of this very crucial subject of our growing generation – self esteem. Once you look it up in the web, instantly it shows to you that self esteem deals about your worth, your value, and your happiness as a human being. Now, this subject has become a primal concern to all of us young people who are discovering his or her place in the greater scheme of things. This has become the growing subject we college student should try to reflect upon and act upon BUT really this concern has not been given so much attention in our conversations and discussions and this my friends is the pervasive case of LOW self-esteem. This has inflicted so many souls, paralyzing them from the inside out and this is that faceless ill invading our young generation. In my own story, there are so many times, so many instances that this concern has surfaced. Faced with doubts, frustrations, anxieties and hopelessness, I have grappled with it for quite some time and after all of those struggles, I have realized that there is a singular most important ingredient that tames this monster. It is a hardened process of self-awareness that can only be achieved when one gains the ability to listen to oneself. And in my understanding, that is why countless of our brothers and sisters are suffering from this ill because our ability to listen has been eroding slowly. Our ability to connect our past to our present is deteriorating, our ability to transcend is being clouded by so many forms of ideologies competing for our loyalty. Our technology has given its toll. We silence our internal rumble with earphones; we substitute presence with being online; we consider text messaging as the foundation of relationships. So it is not surprising that we are suffering a loss sense of worth and value because we as a generation has pegged our worth on externalities – our grades, our clothes, our technologies, our money.

So here lies the challenge. Let us reconnect with our hearts and ourselves intimately by allowing time for us to tune in to the movements of our hearts. Nurture that habit of examining ourselves in a daily basis, writing it down in our journals and offering it all to God – nurture your faith. Also, it is a good idea to share your feelings with very close friends because this gives us a sense of community that does not only enjoy over movies, beer and malling, but with raw expression of the human soul. By doing so, a sense of love develops, a sense of appreciation develops and that case of self-esteem fades into noting.