Perhaps what's needed is a re-evaluation of the work that actually matters. After all, it is still your choice to participate in some things, and not in others. It was your choice to begin a serious practice of meditation.
And then, along with acknowledging your genuine role in your own life, you can continue to acknowledge all the things…
Perhaps what's needed is a re-evaluation of the work that actually matters. After all, it is still your choice to participate in some things, and not in others. It was your choice to begin a serious practice of meditation.
And then, along with acknowledging your genuine role in your own life, you can continue to acknowledge all the things for which you were not responsible at all. But none of those things -- the things you caused and the things you didn't -- need to play a role in "self-esteem." They are, instead, an amalgamation of truth.
That way, when you wish to dispense wisdom, you can do so from a posture absent ego. "Choosing to begin a serious practice of meditation has catalyzed an uncountable number of benefits in my life." Rather than, "I chose to take meditation seriously, which makes me a pretty cool and spiritual person, and therefore worthy of love and respect."
The whole problem with the ego is that it tries to determine self-worth using any and all evidence it can get its hands on. Some of that stuff can be truly attributable to you, some of it (most of it?) can't. Doesn't matter either way. The ego is only concerned with feeling OK, which means feeling worthy of love. So when you let go of ego, as you are doing, that doesn't necessitate the cognitive abdication of all responsibility for your life. It just reframes all of it to exclude obsessive self-evaluation.
Perhaps what's needed is a re-evaluation of the work that actually matters. After all, it is still your choice to participate in some things, and not in others. It was your choice to begin a serious practice of meditation.
And then, along with acknowledging your genuine role in your own life, you can continue to acknowledge all the things for which you were not responsible at all. But none of those things -- the things you caused and the things you didn't -- need to play a role in "self-esteem." They are, instead, an amalgamation of truth.
That way, when you wish to dispense wisdom, you can do so from a posture absent ego. "Choosing to begin a serious practice of meditation has catalyzed an uncountable number of benefits in my life." Rather than, "I chose to take meditation seriously, which makes me a pretty cool and spiritual person, and therefore worthy of love and respect."
The whole problem with the ego is that it tries to determine self-worth using any and all evidence it can get its hands on. Some of that stuff can be truly attributable to you, some of it (most of it?) can't. Doesn't matter either way. The ego is only concerned with feeling OK, which means feeling worthy of love. So when you let go of ego, as you are doing, that doesn't necessitate the cognitive abdication of all responsibility for your life. It just reframes all of it to exclude obsessive self-evaluation.