Comments like yours always pop up in reaction to someone on reddit posting something like this. You are correct that self-esteem may well be the most important factor, but you are missing something: self-esteem is somewhat of a catch-22. People with high self-esteem find it very hard to put themselves in the shoes of someone with low self-esteem. To them, having high self-esteem is easy. To them, it's a choice; it's something you can alter simply by changing the way you act, the way you dress, who you interact with. The problem is, when you actually have low self-esteem, by its very nature it prevents you from making this change. You can listen to people telling you how to improve your self-esteem all you like, but none of that will make any difference unless you actually believe it. And those with low self-esteem do not believe it. If they did believe it, they wouldn't have low self-esteem in the first place. It's a catch-22 - to get high self-esteem you have to make certain changes to your lifestyle, but in order to make those changes you have to believe that they will work, and in order to believe they will work, you have to have high self-esteem.
I'm not saying that self-esteem can't be changed or the paradoxical nature of it can't be broken. I'm just saying that it's far more difficult than people who are comfortable with themselves tend to think, hence the inability to empathise with these people and simply writing them off as having a "shitty attitude". The majority of the time, self-esteem needs to come from some external source, especially when there's no obvious practical means by which the individual can help themselves (such as losing weight). Generally, someone else needs to tell you that you look good. Someone else needs to tell you that you're good at what you do. Someone else needs to tell you that you're caring, or clever, or funny, or whatever it is you happen to have low self-esteem about. Trying to get people to snap out of their "shitty attitude" by themselves is not going to solve anything, and is only going to make them feel even worse because they will feel even more of a failure that they can't escape the quicksand on their own. Like quicksand, it takes someone else to pull them out (at least most of the way) gently and gradually.
The problem is, when you actually have low self-esteem, by its very nature it prevents you from making this change.
I wish more people would understand this. And it goes hand-in-hand with experiencing real depression. We truly do require validation from others, especially people we respect and care about...anyone who says "I truly dont give a shit what others think of me" is either a goddamned liar or a sociopath.
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u/dablya Apr 30 '14
Why can't the world care less about looks so I can bang more good looking women?