Self-esteem and Ego

 Two sides of the same coin. Underconfidence and overconfidence are both problematic to human personality, in my opinion. One can be too smug in one’s abilities, or always doubtful in one’s capacity to successfully perform a specific task. As far as I know, there’s not much of a distinction between arrogance, overconfidence, and ego. Similarly, there’s not much of a distinction between underestimation in oneself, having a low-self esteem, and self-doubt.

These characteristics seem to be exhibited in a number of ways, and to make themselves apparent to those around us, as well as to ourselves. In this section, I want to focus on my thoughts on self-esteem and confidence levels as they relate to two areas of my life--social aptitude, concerning my ability to build and maintain friendships, uphold reputation and respect from others, as well as my self-perception, and the actions I take as a consequence of the way I view myself.

First, I’ll start with what I feel to be the upsides of having a high self-esteem. Self-confidence, or what can be considered arrogance in excess, has the properties of inflating one’s self-image. For example, if I have an inflated view of myself, I may compare my physique to the Rock, as opposed to your average Joe. I would feel that I am better than most, which would give me a sense of motivation and a drive to act upon that perceived strength. As a consequence, even if that perceived strength was not actually a strength, the motivation that I get drives me to invest time into that particular skill, which in turn actually improves my performance at that task.

One example of such a skill is running. I feel that my running times are respectable, (won’t add them here, since I feel that they are mostly irrelevant to the discussion, and even if they aren’t what others would consider respectable, I wouldn’t know it, and it wouldn’t impact my telling of the story) and have often outperformed others in sprint exercises at the gym I used to attend, or in warmups in my school’s PE class. The effect of my performance at these tasks gave me the impression that I was already a good runner, which prompted me to begin comparing myself with professional runners, and made me want to compare myself with them.

The drive to continually becoming better at the skill drove me to take up the activity on a daily basis, and make a habit out of it. The fact that I ran in the neighborhood and was often seen by neighbors and neighborhood friends further gave me a boost in self-esteem and confidence in my running abilities, fantasizing of what others must think of me (even if they did not think much of the fact that I ran). Thus, I feel that running in the presence of others, and outcompeting the competition in which I was situated prompted me to initially further invest time in the act of running, which led to a positive feedback loop of practice, improvement, and motivation.

However, I would be remiss if I did not discuss the aspects of overconfidence, particularly when it comes to making friends, staying humble, and expressing gratitude. I suppose that a natural tradeoff of increased confidence in one’s own abilities is the devaluing of others’ abilities, and the difficulty in making oneself likeable to others. If I like myself more than others, then I would tend to appreciate others less, and so, I would tend to attract less friends.

I think one such scenario in which I fell into this trap was my 10th grade of high school, in my Math class. I was particularly high-performing at Calculus in my school, and often earned the highest score and had achievements, such as receiving a perfect score on the multiple choice score on the Mock AP. I feel that my altered self-perception was a consequence of both my situation, and my attitude towards myself. Overall, I seemed to come across as slightly arrogant to others, while attempting to superficially remain humble. While this did not have any immediately noticeable tradeoff, I feel that in retrospect, I could have better channeled my efforts in understanding why it was that others struggled, in order to maintain my likability.

All in all, I feel that there is a fine balance between underconfidence ego, as it relates to one’s own performance, and social respect and likeability. And, it is a nuanced issue that I am continuing to learn about and achieve balance in.