I find that I have never really had much confidence or real love for myself, and even as a young child, I consistently thought that the other kids had huge egos (even if in retrospect, I can see that their confidence was normal for their age.). There are many root causes for this, but something that is only increasing its hold on me is myself. I know, logically, that I hold myself to a higher standard than I do others. I see my relative position compared to others instead of my own growth. There is the constant thought that I am not special like other people are, and just average at everything, only covering that all up with knowledge. However, this ambition may be part of the thing holding me back. My insistence to catch up quickly means i don’t really learn in sequence and through thinking, but just by finding the answers through research. So, to deal with this self-esteem issue I can try to fix the problem in a different way. But again, I must remember not to beat myself up when I can’t figure something out, as I know that that is often because I don’t have enough prior knowledge. This will stop me from spending many hours toiling away at something that just frustrates me. Also, this will give me more time to do non-academic hobbies. This could help in “spreading out” self-esteem sources more, and not have it be based so much on intellect. Also, I will have more fun as I will be purposeful as I grow, and have more pure fun.

Essentially, I need to be more realistic in my goals, and achieve them more thoroughly, and have more activities that I do outside of them.

But there are only so many hours in a day, and I would need lots of energy to do the things I want to do. So, I really need to get my act together and sleep more. Instead of just scrolling on my phone, looking at things mostly unmemorable, I need to tell myself to sleep.

As I see what I have written so far, I see that most of this self-love is very tough, trying to make myself better, but it isn’t addressing the root question: Why do I have such ambitions for myself? I think it is because I think that everyone else is managing to have many hobbies, and some of them manage to be ambitious like me as well. Clearly, I have the ambition to be like them, be among the best, and perhaps that can’t be changed, but how could I do that and get healthier self-worth in the process. Maybe it’s because they make more time and have more energy. So perhaps instead of wasted time, I sleep more, and try to have more than just fuzz in my head most of the time, which distracts me and makes it hard to work or feel.

Perhaps these steps to be easier on myself and take care of myself will count as being kind to myself.