Life is a constant self-love and loving yourself is a dynamic process

PART 1: Healthy mentality

I think I am an open-minded person, but recently I found out that my emotion is not stable enough so that when a person defeat me in an argument, I can’t help it but feels my self-esteem has fallen. Here is why and some tips to overcoming it (credits to Cania Citta, my favourite podcaster in my universe).

First, you have separate your personal from your idea/opinion/argument. Yourself are alive forever with you, but not your opinion. Opinion/argument can be wrong and should be changed if it was wrong. When it happen, you can easily let go that opinion.

Don’t assume your opinion is describing yourself, so you take conclusion that your opinion value = your self-worth. When your opinion is proven to be wrong or stupid and the opinion value becomes fall, you’ll feel your self-worth also fall at the same time. This kind of mentality is absolutely unhealthy.

There are two probabilities of the result:

1. You’re stand still and unwilling to accept that the opinion is totally wrong (the evidence show it is wrong) or

2. You’re willing to accept that the opinion is wrong but your self-worth is crushing and broken, and you’re unwilling to learn or make an opinion again.

Healthy mentality will be: your opinion doesn’t define yourself. Try to learn from it and you can grow into a person with better qualities.

Second, try to assume that thinking and making an argument is an endless process, because the reality is always developing and changing, and the way we see it more accurately also been progressed — it’s not perfect in a short time — find new data, correcting, improving, repeat.

It’s also inevitable, when you say a misleading argument which giving a fatal impact and losing respect from others, IT’S OKAY! That’s the consequence you have to accept. It can be temporary or permanent, and this is OUT OF YOUR CONTROL. One thing you can control is, when you giving wrong argument, you always have an option to keep correcting and improving yourself. So, don’t be extremely denial that you’re wrong and giving up to think another argument when you accepting your fault.

Third, see “stupid” concept as “objective description” —not your self-worth— towards an argument. When the argument is wrong and people say you’re stupid, just accept it as a fact, no need to feel down about it.

PART 2: Stop caring what other people think

Human is a social creatures and we can’t live by our self. We need others and others need us too. Mistakes, misunderstanding are part of our live. We fall in love, we fall in argue with each others. In our subconscious mind, we already did a selection of what kind of people which has potential to be our friend, and may be our spouse. How do we know this? Simply we don’t fall in love with all people, right? That’s the selection done by our subconscious mind.

We will always crave social validation, but you can change who you seek that validation from. You can decide who are the people you want to impress, who the people worth impressing. Instead of not caring what people think, just find better people. Surround yourself with people you admire, people you look up to, people who can teach you something, and who respect you for who you are.

Last but not least, there is one quote that I love so much from Coco (Disney movie):

Don’t be afraid of losing people. Be afraid of losing yourself trying to please everyone.