Self esteem

One's so called worth comes from what one thinks of himself and how convinced he is of it. In other words, it could be called one's self esteem. It need not necessarily be positive thoughts, it could as well be once deep rooted believes in one's limitations. So essentially self esteem is the image one has of his own self in his mind. It could be called the idea of qualitative abilities of the notion of self by which a man identifies.

When one has a negative view of of these abilities, it comes up as a feeling of worthlessness.

Irrespective of what one thinks of oneself, one is vulnerable. The worthlessness by definition is a feeling of inadequacy and unease. A positive self esteem is subject to being hurt, when either one's abilities are challenged by another or when they start to wane. Nonetheless, there is no arguing to the fact  that a positive self esteem is a better state of mind to be in than a state of mind that feels worthless. 

One then asks if there is a self esteem that is not fragile, a self esteem that doesn't waver with time. If one's self esteem is based on comparative terms, whether on the positive or negative side of comparison, it's bound to be brittle as it's in constant conflict with the esteem of those around one. So we rule out comparison as an attribute of such a self esteem. Then it turns out there is nothing to feel good about when one accomplishes something, an accomplishment being something that others can't do and one can. Nor is there anything to feel bad about that one can't accomplish. Such a man would then drift from accomplishments to interests based on the innate abilities that he has. And the innate ability might be no social or economic significance, there might be millions of people who don't have that innate ability and can do the same job much better. But the man who wants to have a timeless self esteem having rooted out comparison from his psyche, would still continue to do what he is meant to and that would become his livelihood.

I wonder if one of the abilities would be to do nothing at all, not because one is being lazy or bored or indolent. Just because one doesn't see the necessity of doing it.  But that would be a selfish way to live, a man can't be alive, sensitive and stay aloof from the society like that. 

One then has to do the best he can in his capacity to end the misery around him. However, there is no self esteem derived from this action. I guess the understanding of this phenomena helps one overcome the idea of worthlessness and one's self esteem being hurt.