Winner: 2015’s Other Perspectives of the Year
Here’s a great one for the world today. People are always talking about having self-esteem and humility, when in reality they are demonstrating ego and pride. Ego is when you think you’re important because you process the world through only your own perspective. And pride is a certainty that your own view is an objective truth. So from a mindset like that you don’t engage in empathy. You never even try to comprehend what the experience is like for another person, you just want them to accept your experience as theirs. Self-esteem and humility are nothing like that. Self-esteem is a kind of resilience. Self-esteem allows someone to comfortably hear an opposing opinion after which they can then make a choice in that moment to either maintain an existing belief or to create a new one based on the new information or understanding. But if we are not actually open to change then we are locked in ego. Self-esteem doesn’t need you to be anyone in particular—it’s more flexible than ego—but it does need you to fully and authentically be whoever it is you have chosen to be. And humility isn’t at the opposite end of the spectrum from pride. Pride is at one end and insecurity is at the other and humility is the fulcrum in between–you know what you know, but you know what you don’t know too. So you stay humble, then you’re fully aware that you’re always only seeing things from your perspective. So the idea isn’t that you tell your kid that they’re the greatest (which of course also means that they are separate and alone at the top), because that idea cannot accommodate sharing or genuine connection with others. Instead, our parents should encourage us to prioritize the development of those valuable and beautiful connections, rather than suggest that we are somehow better or more valuable than someone else. By helping us to feel that our perspectives are no less or no more valuable than anyone else’s, a parent helps to create a very fertile foundation for the growth and development of a very strong, generous, beautiful and very lovable adult. Enjoy your day.
peace. s
Scott McPherson is a writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and nonprofit organizations around the world.
A serious childhood brain injury lead Scott to spend his entire life meditating on the concepts of thought, consciousness, reality and identity. It made others as strange to him as he was to them. When he realized people were confused by their own over-thinking, Scott began teaching others to understand reality. He is currently CBC Radio Active’s Wellness Columnist, as well as a writer, speaker and mindfulness instructor based in Edmonton, AB where he still finds it strange to write about himself in the third person.