Self-esteem: What is your sense of self?

What is self-esteem? The Oxford dictionary defines self-esteem as confidence in ones own worth or abilities; self-respect. Self-esteem essentially refers to how an individual feels about himself or herself. Self-esteem always involves a degree of evaluation, and we may have either a positive or a negative view of ourselves.

There are two parts to one’s self; the real self and the ideal self. The real self is who we actually are. It is how we think, how we feel, look, and act. The ideal self, on the other hand, is how we want to be. It is an idealized image that we have developed over time, based on what we have learned and experienced.

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Our real self is who we are and our ideal self can influence our real self causing it to have an effect on our overall self-esteem. It is important that we have a positive view of ourselves because this tends to lead to confidence in our own abilities,self-acceptance, optimism and not worrying excessively about what others think. But if we give our ideal self-esteem the chance to overcome us, then we start to have a negative view of ourselves which tends to lead to lack of confidence, pessimism, wanting to be or look like someone else and always worrying what others might think.

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Sometimes, in the process of trying to build one's sense of self, restrictions come in place to play a part. These restrictions are what Gurnah refers to as cages. Cages can come in form of fear, negativity, low self-esteem e.t.c. In Abdulrazak Gurnah's "Cages", We see that every single character is restricted by certain circumstances that prevent them from upholding their senses of self. Mansur is caged by his blindness, Fajir is caged by his physical debility, Hamid is caged by his negative sense of self while Rukiya is caged by her expectations of men. based on past experiences, she thinks that Hamid only wants sex therefore, she fails to see his potentials. Hamid on the other hand actually sees potential in Rukiya not minding the fact that Masur addresses her as a potential sexual conquest. He tries to break out of his negative sense of self by wanting to follow the dark path that Rukiya always disappears into but fear stops him. At the end of the story, You'd expect that he finally gets out of his cage right? No. he is further caged by his sense of shame at the low opinion Rukiya has for him.

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Although, self-esteem might fluctuate, there are times when we continue to believe things about ourselves even when there is evidence to the contrary. This is known as the perseverance effect. It is a psychological phenomenon in which people hold on tightly to their beliefs regardless of convincing evidence that proves they are actually incorrect. This effect can be both positive and negative. That means if we believe negative things about ourselves, we are likely to maintain those beliefs regardless of what is really true and also, if we believe positive things about ourselves, we are likely to maintain those beliefs regardless of what is really not true. Therefore, through this process we can be motivated to break out of our various cages and maintain that high self-esteem we have always desired, no matter what it takes.