Meditation for April 7th, 2016
Getting Self Esteem
Self Esteem is feeling good about who you are, what you are doing and where you are in life. Self-esteem is feeling confident in your decisions because you are living as yourself and not what you think others see you living. We get self-esteem by doing esteemable acts and not letting our doubts and fears weigh us down.
It’s too bad that just recycling is not esteemable enough. Esteemable acts are sacrificing the good of your own life to help another person. This means you are actually coming out of your comfortable life and working hard for no pay off at all except for self-esteem.
The minute you tell someone what you have done that self-esteem gets erased and that esteemable act becomes nil. It might as well not have happened. Humble esteemable acts are done for no credit what so ever. The less people know what you are doing the more self esteem you get, but the minute someone catches you, your self esteem have become erased and you are at square zero.
Self esteem works like this: you are a pitiful sack of flesh that has language, opposable thumbs and the will to make choices. When you are not engaged with your fellow sacks of flesh you are a waste of flesh. You have no purpose. You are an insignificant nothing robbing the earth of precious resources. You then do something for another person for no reason other than to help another person for no credit whatsoever, you become a sack of flesh that has purpose. You don’t need to recognize your inconsequential reality has no meaning in the grand scheme of the universe.
People need help. People are trying to shoulder the hardness and the coldness of life on their shoulders alone. If you can help one person feel less alone in this bleak place, then you are acting altruistic. Comedians do more for this life than any reverend or priest can. Paying for someone’s coffee in a pay it forward scheme at Starbucks is just a lame ass privileged self-fuck, but making a person smile and feel at ease in a bottoming out society is a real gift.
Self-esteem comes from making up a soul and putting it into someone else.
Prayer
The God of Callous Humors,
I volunteer at a soup kitchen,
I pick up trash at the beach,
I volunteer at a youth shelter,
I pull English ivy at the park,
I adopted a child,
I vote my conscience,
I ride a bike,
I recycle,
I disconnected my downspouts from the sewers,
I am creating a backyard bird sanctuary,
I do a free yoga class,
I pay for my friends’ drinks,
I don’t litter,
I don’t have kids,
I don’t wear makeup or hair products,
I don’t wear deodorant to my coworkers’ dismay,
I don’t’ eat meat,
I only eat the eggs my chickens lay,
I try so hard to be ok,
But I’m still depressed and lost.
For some reason all of this isn’t enough.
I still feel less than.
I see other people in my circle of friends,
And I’m envious of how easy it is for them to get through life.
They seem impervious to the harms life deals us.
They are seemingly happy with ease.
I guess I’m not good enough.
Goddess of All Things Harden,
I don’t have low self-esteem.
How do I know?
Because people think I’m an asshole.
That means I have high self-esteem.
I say whatever is on my mind,
Even if it bums someone out.
I just walk into a room full of people yelling.
I point at someone and tear him or her apart for wearing a dumb sweater,
When someone calls me out for being harsh,
I just shrug my shoulders and say, “That is just who I am, love it or leave it!”
I won’t change.
Even if it’ll save several friendships.
I’m just an asshole.
I say what I think.
I say what you were thinking, right?
Right?
I say harsh stuff all the time,
But if someone says anything harsh about me,
I’ll just die.
Amen.
Goal
Building self-esteem crafts.
Keep making birdhouses until you make it perfect.
Hide that you are learning to dance and then when you show up to a wedding, bust a move!
Dress like you are The Most Interesting Man in the World at all times.
Tan.
Organize your bookshelf by color so that the whites fade into black through the spectrum of the rainbow.
Learn to cook very well and cook for everyone.
Mow your entire neighborhood’s lawns.
Have a lot of books to lend out – like a library, but the library is you and the person doesn’t need a card so don’t expect to ever see the book again because people don’t really read so the book will just sit somewhere until the person hides the book because they feel so guilty for not even cracking it so then they can’t seem to find it when you ask for it back.
Keep a deck of tarot cards on you so you can read people’s tarots. People love to hear about themselves and this is a great way to talk about someone without having to hear them talk about themselves.
Always wear a tie and comb your hair.
Don’t ever go out in public in a tank top. Tank tops are underwear.
Smoke cigarettes ever once in a while. The self-esteem comes from not being addicted to them.
Have faiths in gods and things so other people don’t have to.
Learn magic so you always have a trick to pull. People have a love and fear relationship with magicians, so people will love you at the same time as respect you defensively.
Breaking into your neighbor’s house and doing their laundry.
Breaking into a writer’s house and rewriting what they’ve written, but write it better. They’ll think its gnomes.
Eat better and exercise and take a selfie everyday and then post it on Facebook so everyone sees you lose weight.
Deliver pizzas to stoners who aren’t expecting pizza.
Goal
Basically self-esteem is action and not just from thinking. You can think all you want, but it doesn’t change anything until you dive into being of service to others. You can meditate and tell yourself in the mirror all the time about how worthy you are, but the fact is that it doesn’t change until you are acting like you’re worth it.