Who Do You Think You Are?

Today, I was talking with a colleague of mine at Sweet Valley Middle School and I realized that for the beautiful person that she is, she still puts a great deal of her self-worth into her job. That got me thinking: where does who we think we are come from?

I, as you may know, spent most of my adult life as a very over wieght person. Funny enough, though, I never really spent much time thinking about it. Yes, I'd look in the mirror and be unhappy with what I saw, but most of the time, I thought I looked fine.

When it came to work, I did the best I could and sometimes it was brilliant and sometimes it sucked, but I did what I could do. It never occurred to me that maybe I should relate what I felt about myself to the type of job I was doing.

Several months ago, I was talking to a woman I work with, I'll call her "Dory". Well, "Dory"says to me, "don't you feel so much better about yourself now that you've lost weight?" I looked at her confused for a moment and said, in all honesty "I never really felt that bad about myself to begin with." It really got me thinking, "should I have felt bad about myself?" Now, I'm more confused than ever. If I felt ok about myself before I lost weight, what am I doing it now for? It's a wonder I ever got to sleep at night.

I used to work in a middle school in Florida, one I'll call "Orange Middle School". Well, the principal of the school tells me that she won't sign off on my probation, because I have what she deemed a "self-esteem issue" I asked her if she meant that maybe she thought my self-esteem was too low. "No" she says "It's just the opposite"

I ended up leaving that job, the only job I'd ever left (and hopefully ever will) because my self-esteem was just too darn high.

I know who I am, what I look like and what I'm capable of. If that's high esteem, then I don't really get it, I think I'm cool most of the time, but at times I can be a complete idiot.

I guess what I'm trying to say is self-esteem can only be found in you. If you try to look for it in other places or things, you'll only be disappointed. That's what I learned today.