I have a teenage friend who is worried. He never had a romantic relationship with a girl friend throughout high school. He spent Valentine’s Day brooding because he had no girl friend to share with the day.

To make matters worse, his friends would tease him about his situation telling him that he was good for nothing and was doomed to be a failure to the extent that he believed them and started feeling useless.

Although he passed his senior six exams very well, he is still unhappy because he remained obsessed with getting a girl friend. He believes only then will he attain real happiness and belong to the right group.

Clearly my friend’s self esteem has been crushed and unless he takes control of his life, he might never appreciate the many other good things happening to him. Many other young people can identify with my friend.

Time and again they have found themselves going through situations that leave them feeling like they are good for nothing. The more they hate themselves, the more their self esteem erodes and the aftermath usually is not pleasant.

Low self esteem and self doubt might lead people into drug abuse and other self destructive behavior, sometimes to the extent of committing suicide. The youth must hold on to their self esteem at all times, as it is important to their well being.

To me, I think self esteem is crucial during teenage years because that is when your view of the world is formed. You need to develop self confidence to build a good image about yourself .

With self confidence, you can focus on succeeding on whatever you set your mind on. For example if you hate your self for something that happened to you in the past,  you can start the healing  process by making a deliberate effort to love your self , when you successfully love yourself , you grow self-confidence and feel empowered to face  new challenges .

As you succeed in confronting each challenge, you soon discover that you are developing the capacity to cope with whatever life throws your way. Eventually your self-confidence, self reliance and self esteem grow.

Rebuilding a crushed self-esteem is never easy. You must make a conscious decision to identify what pulls you down and think of how to deal with it.

You could make a list of your strong points and build o them.
People with high self-esteem are never devastated by criticism.

There is a story of an eagle which was raised up by a chicken. Whenever he could see other eagles soaring, he would wish he too could soar.

The other chickens would discourage him saying that it was impossible for him to soar since he was just a chicken. Eventually, this eagle died without ever attempting to soar.

My fellow youth, do not allow your self esteem to be crushed by other people. Just believe in yourself and you will find your self capable of doing anything in the world.

Contact: Fimwel@outgun.com