It has been a couple of months, perhaps also the fault of this period, that I have received many requests for help on the subject of self-esteem.
And just as I began to look around to understand how to best organize my intervention on the subject, I realized that the world of motivation is ruinously fueled by images and stereotypes that today we can safely archive as obsolete, if not downright false.
Talking about self-esteem by referring to men who lift weights or ride motorcycles is like talking about democracy and social justice in the Council of Europe. It's just an exercise in rhetoric ... silly and useless.
What does it mean?
Frankly, I believe that life too often becomes a much more difficult place for everyone than a sports competition. We can sincerely applaud the performance of an athlete who pushes his limits and wins a race. It is a show.
And like all shows, we show our appreciation with applause. But we can no longer make this gesture a reference model for those life situations in which the same athlete as before, off the pitch, repeatedly falls in the absence of self-esteem and self-confidence.
The story of the last 30 years is a story of athletes, actors and showmen collapsed under the weight of life that rhetoric has nevertheless taken as a reference to talk about self-esteem.
Life is not a show. And people are tired of having to deal with fake and pre-made models. There is no applause for every successful step along your path.
When you help your kids with homework or music exercises, while you are late with an appointment you can catch up, but in the meantime you are the only one who can drop by the post office to pick up a registered letter among 35 people in line, still taking home the result, together with a fine for no parking and the expense that in the meantime has been asked of you via Whatsapp, you will not find anyone to applaud you.
Likewise, there is no audience that claps their hands when you spend your evenings studying information and making accounts that allow you to anticipate events and put your family in safety.
The livable and warm house, the bills paid, the food in the pantry, the drinks and the wines, the guaranteed treatments, the university fees, the constant presence, the nights talking, the affectionate hugs, the daily sacrifices.
It makes you think about ordinary business or family matters, right? Well, in fact, what else should we think about? What should good self-esteem really do, if not to guarantee you a more effective and happy path in life and work?
And what life path is ever happy, if your children or loved ones are not healthy, happy and safe people?
An athlete can win or lose a race, but not feel like a failure. There is always another opportunity to remedy an applause. On the other hand, a man who loses his role as son or father or partner, failing in his attempt to succeed, is a man destroyed from within, where an atrocious battle of guilt and ineffectiveness takes place.
Self-esteem is not simply a way of thinking about oneself above something or someone, but it means feeling adequate for life, work and the increasingly pressing challenges of this last period.
The last two years have been an important testing ground for millions of people who have not withstood the tension induced by the system and have succumbed to blackmail and that sneaky mechanism of social proof.
Some of us, however, have not given up, although they are beginning to falter. And this is dangerous.
The challenge of the coming years
Important new challenges await us. We know anything can happen. And the next two years will be like an endless barrage from every point of view: economic, professional, personal, family, emotional.
Some people will stand, others will collapse.
The difference will only be given by the world in which you think about yourself and your ability to hold on or achieve results, whatever they may be.
Marco Cappellato
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