I think you over-interpreted my statement juuust a little bit... ;)
I am simply criticizing the common norm of blaming the bullied person for not being cool enough.
I have no problems with my self-esteem and I think well of myself. But I am also not disillusioned when it comes to accepting the fact that you can only enjoy a happy life if you adapt to your surroundings. And if you stick your neck out to far you are going to get burned.
So yes, there are other ways of gaining self-esteem. By getting really self-confident about your own abilities regarding cellular automata or whatever. But not all those paths are going to make you a happy and relaxed person. You always have to consider the context you are in. Of course, both your source of self-esteem and your context are variable, but there is no denying that they both have big influence on your happiness.
Ah. Glad to hear I over-interpreted. Would rather err on the side of empathy than not.
Context can most certainly influence my happiness. There's still at least one step between context & its influence, though. You just named it: interpretation.
The trick is changing the thought pattern for interpretation. I changed mine on New Year's Eve & it's made all the difference. Here's my take...
Every moment is meeting some set of needs of mine. In the shittiest of moments, the potential needs being met, regardless of my awareness of them, are:
- learning how to better meet my needs and/or how to better empathize with those going through similar shit
- gratitude for either of those needs being met
- gratitude for the opportunity to learn how to better meet my needs
That last one is the default. I can always meet my need for gratitude. And gratitude produces joy, meeting a second need.
I avoid having a single point of failure in my system through also defining a purpose for my life to tie each moment to. There's other bits to it, but these are the most relevant ones here.
I am simply criticizing the common norm of blaming the bullied person for not being cool enough.
I have no problems with my self-esteem and I think well of myself. But I am also not disillusioned when it comes to accepting the fact that you can only enjoy a happy life if you adapt to your surroundings. And if you stick your neck out to far you are going to get burned.
So yes, there are other ways of gaining self-esteem. By getting really self-confident about your own abilities regarding cellular automata or whatever. But not all those paths are going to make you a happy and relaxed person. You always have to consider the context you are in. Of course, both your source of self-esteem and your context are variable, but there is no denying that they both have big influence on your happiness.