Anarchistbanjo's World

Good self-esteem is vital in life. Without it we remain victims and unable to achieve the things we really want. When we feel good about ourselves it is easier to feel good about others too.

In my personal opinion there are three supreme goals we should strive for in life. If we can reach a competency level in each area we will have a healthy self-esteem.

Competency in these three areas will do more toward spiritual, emotional, mental and physical health than any other goals we may pursue. That does not mean these goals are easily achieved.

The first goal is completion of a basic first aid or paramedic course. Some type of course which trains a person in dealing with medical emergencies. There is no feeling worse than standing by helpless when someone else is dying or in desperate need of emergency medical attention.

One of my children once choked on an ice cube. She was turning blue and couldn’t breathe. I remember mechanically picking her up, slapping her on the back to dislodge the object and reaching down her throat to scoop up the ice cube. What can I say? What if I had been unable to do anything and remained frozen with fear?

I drove into my parent’s yard one day and my father was giving CPR to my uncle on the steps leading into our house. He continued doing CPR for 15 minutes until the paramedics arrived. My uncle died on our doorstep that day.

What if my father had not tried to keep him alive with CPR? In times of emergency if something can be done it must be done. Many places offer basic first aid courses throughout the year. EMT training is also available but it takes a little longer. As a life goal EMT training should be attainable by almost anyone.

The reward may be much more than self-esteem. You may use that knowledge to save the life of someone you love.

The second lifetime goal should be to acquire survival skills. This means the ability to stay alive in survival conditions. Having the ability to swim is an example. The ability to find or create shelter from the elements and start a campfire is another.

Other obvious examples would be knowing what to do when you are lost or when you need to go someplace for help.

These are all skills which are easily attainable through local courses almost anywhere. They aid tremendously in developing confidence and self-esteem

Those that wish to master these skills could learn how to live off the land for days at a time. Courses are also taught on how to find food in nature and how to create emergency shelters. Sure, this type of training is difficult. But remember we are talking about lifetime goals here.

Many things can be learned and experienced a little at a time and not all of them at once.

These skills are learned by physically going through the actions required and not by intellectual knowledge. The physical body needs to be taught step-by-step by actually going through the motions and the experiences.

Hiking, camping, rock climbing, and any outdoor sport can be valuable in providing this survival type experience. The more experience we have, the better our survival ability becomes and the better we feel about ourselves.

In acquiring these skills we know with conviction that we can take care of ourselves and take care of those we love in emergencies. This knowledge is very empowering and helps us to believe in ourselves. It helps us to reach out with confidence for those things we want in life for both ourselves and for those we love.

The third lifetime goal is the ability for self defense. The ability to defend ourselves or our loved ones is vital to our well-being. This does not mean picking a fight with someone. It means that you don’t have to back down or run just because someone threatens you or a loved one with physical violence.

The sad truth is that we may have our hard-earned goal within our hands and through threat of force or violence someone can take it away from us. There are people that prey upon weaker people and take advantage of the weakness of their victims.

The ability for self-defense is a mindset as well as a physical skill. We have been brainwashed into thinking it is better to offer no resistance when confronted by force or threat of force. This applies equally to the rules, regulations, and laws that strangle our personal freedoms at an ever-increasing rate. We are told that it is the law, we must not resist. Increasingly there are frivolous laws being passed that infringe upon our personal freedoms. Some of these laws are blatantly unconstitutional and revoked by the Supreme Court. Others have not yet been ruled upon by the Supreme Court.

Whether it is a physical assault upon our person or a legal assault upon our individual rights there is a line that must be drawn. There must be some point where a person says “I will not take any more abuse. This type of abuse must stop and it must stop here and now.”

We must refuse to be victims. When we are victims we suffer, our loved one suffer, our community suffers, our nation suffers and the entire human race suffers. When we stand up to defend ourselves and our loved ones we are no longer victims regardless of the outcome of the situation. We have at least done something, took whatever action we could to make the situation right.

Someone must be the first to stand up and fight back. Why must it always be the other person that fights for the injustice in our world? Why can’t it be us once in a while?

These are the three important lifetime goals which I believe will do the most to develop self-esteem within a person. There are other smaller goals that will assist this process.

We each have at least one skill, one thing that we are good at, one thing others will come to us to learn about. There must be at least one thing we are known for and respected for. We must be good at this one personal skill to have a healthy self-esteem.

Find that one thing and hone it to perfection. Become highly competent at that one physical skill, whatever it is. Each individual is unique. Some things appeal to one person and not to another. We each have certain things we find easy to do and other things that we find difficult to do.

In the beginning it is vital that we become highly skilled at what we find easy to do even if we are not that interested in doing it. Each small success is cumulative and will lead us through the clumsy, awkward stage, into true proficiency and finally into professional level competency. We must become familiar with both the awkwardness of the beginner and the competence of the professional.

When we understand the cycle of success we no longer fear the awkward stage of being a beginner because we know that as we gain experience it will become easier. Too many people refuse to do new things in life because they are afraid of looking foolish and awkward in front of others. The same people have probably never reached competency at a skill and don’t understand how the success cycle really works.

By achieving professional level competence in those areas that are easy for us, we become able to recognize the same stages of competency as we try gaining skills in other areas that are not so easy. When we have success in one area we know success is possible and we know what it feels like. We are able to recognize it in other areas. We have physical knowledge and experience of what it is like.

Each person should eventually acquire many skills at the professional level. They should acquire not only easily developed skills, but at least one extremely difficult skill.

It requires hard grueling effort against terrible resistance to prepare us for self mastery of our physical lives and our physical world. In fact, the only way to achieve mastery of our physical lives is by mastering one physical skill at a time.

Mastery comes when one looks back at a wide range of hard won efforts and skills and realizes that compared to many others his or her life is relatively problem free. This person is able to realize that he or she is free.