Phoenix
by Dale J. Sprague
White Papers
Self Image
A low self'image is not good because of its expectations. A high self'image is not good because of the stress required to maintain it. A mediocre self'image is not good because it guarantees mediocrity. Therefore, cultivating any self'image is not a good thing.
In no way can a self'image match who one is, one's timbre, that special blend of all the thoughts, feelings, emotions, one has accumulated throughout the course of one's life. Each person is as unique as the next, no matter how much one may be occupied leveling with another. That uniqueness, that special timbre cannot be comprehended enough to become some conscious construct of a self'image. If it is done, with such an image, no matter how much self'esteem is associated with it, it will be done with great expense. Its cost is immense and foreboding because it is at the expense of one's special sense of uniqueness, to say nothing of forsaking its instincts, or at lest handicapping them.
A self'image of any kind can only amount to a paltry summation of who one is. Since self esteem requires self'image, this argument obsoletes the notion of self'esteem and affirms rather, the notion of self'confidence from one's knowledge, wisdom, and skill...those things that inevitably accumulate from everyone's every day living.