What Is Self-Esteem Instability?
And why does it matter?
Fluctuation time
Do you miss the old days when you were little and people would say to your mother, “Oh, that’s such an adorable age. They’re so cute at four.”?
Who says, “Oh, that’s such a good age! They’re so cute at sixty”?
Well, it turns out, we do! We say it to ourselves about ourselves when we’re that age. Self-esteem is statistically highest at the age of sixty.
Sure, it takes work to overlook our collagen deficit and our low points on the dating market. But we can stay on an even keel for the time being, until the sagging skin covering our eyes is just too hard to ignore, because we have successfully emotionally matured. We may not be objectively gorgeous, but we might enjoy our playful humor or gardening with a loved one, being one with the earth, air, and water. We don’t worry as much as middle-schoolers about whether someone popular might be making fun of us behind our backs because we smiled at him.
Slow changes are expected over the course of a lifetime even in people with secure self-esteem. But people with contingent self-esteem are terrified the rug could be pulled out from under them at any moment throughout each day. They can’t easily keep their mind on gardening day after day unless they’re…
