Pain is Inevitable Misery is Optional

The so-called, Self Esteem Movement in America has been a series of unmitigated disasters leading to the development of wimps with depression and fear. It seems that the Self Esteem Movement has attempted to eliminate all short term mental and emotional PAIN and has thereby promulgated long-term misery.

In sports and all other kinds of naturally competitive activities the Self Esteem Movement fanatics see to it that everyone gets credit for winning even if they refuse to show up and compete. The awards ceremonies are filled with non-winners and failures that get honors and awards anyway. Such nonsense tends to develop either adults with a strong dose of cynicism who think all people in authority are dweebs and fakers or conversely those with a hothouse mentality so fragile that they collapse into a heap of self-condemnation at the first sign of a failure.

Far better would be an approach that fostered extreme competition and developed a tough resilient mentality that would not break the first time they were called a bad name. The Self Esteem Movement has led to the development of another American tragedy, the Politically Correct Police and it’s bastard son, Hate Speech Laws.

One day last year a six year old kid called another first grader some kind of bad name. I do not remember exactly what it was but I think it had to do with sexual dysfunction. The offended boy went home and told his mommy who immediately called the school principal and demanded that more protection be placed on the bus so her super-sensitive son would have his ears protected from other little boys name calling.

Unable to get her satisfaction with the principal she went to the school board and demanded more bus police. Can you imagine that her son will not develop the named sexual dysfunction with such an overactive and oppressive mother? Is no one aware of how much such behavior is overkill?

We need kids with hardened ears and resilient brains who will not faint at the first sign of rejection, dislike and conflict. Why are the Self Esteem Movement people teaching kids to give such power to others? Do they not know the old saw “Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me?”

Why teach our children that they should allow every jerk to control their feelings and behavior? This develops adults who are only one insensitive jerk away from total collapse and death from a heart attack.

By attempting to nanny pain away we have almost guaranteed the recipients who buy the lies it is built upon a lifetime of misery. Self Esteem Movement robots can only develop mental notes of helplessness, hopelessness and haplessness.