12th entry - Self-Affirmation and Self-Denial

I remember taking a course on the social psychological and sociological foundation of management in the first year of university, which I enjoyed more than most other academic subjects at the time. One of the basic topics covered in the course was on self-schema, which I found to be rather fascinating as it made me understand more about how we perceive the world we live in and respond to things that happen around us or to us.

Our self-schema is essentially a generalization about ourselves, abstracted from the present situation and past experiences. Self-schema is essentially one's self concept, which is in essence perceptions of oneself in terms of traits, competencies, and values. It organizes knowledge about specific stimulus domains (e.g. things in our environment) and guide both the processing of new information and the retrieval of stored information. They can be viewed as structured expectations about people, situations, and events.

Another concept is self-esteem, which is our opinion about ourselves. It is based on our attitude(s) to the following:

• Your value as a person
  
• The job you do
  
• Your achievements
  
• How you think others see you
  
• Your purpose in life
  
• Your place in the world
  
• Your potential for success
  
• Your strengths and weaknesses
  
• Your social status and how you relate to others
  
• Your independence or ability to stand on your own feet

When some of us are criticized or told outright that "we are wrong" about something, depending on our perception of the person's intentions and motivation (or relationship with us), we may perceive it as a positive feedback to encourage us to change our self-schema, or as a negative attack on our self-schema (popularly known as "taking it personally"), which reduces our self-esteem. When we are faced with a hopeless situation - meaning that we are at a loss about what to do and we cannot cope with the problems facing us, our self-esteem will also be reduced.

If our self-esteem is reduced, we will often have a desire to restore the self-esteem that we lost. A process of self affirmation, which causes people to reduce the impact of a threat to their self-schema by focusing on and affirming their competence in some other area, will then make us feel better about ourselves. "Knock my self-esteem in one area and I’ll try and compensate by thinking about another area."

When we see counsellors about a problem related to our self-esteem, or talk to close friends who lend us their listening ears when we are feeling down because of low self-esteem, we will often go through a process of regaining our self-esteem. Counsellors may encourage self-affirmation processes to occur, to make us see ourselves in a better light (positive self-schema) and enable us to feel better about ourselves (self-esteem). The comforting words dispensed by a sensitive and caring friend ("Cheer up! Things are not so bad! Look on the bright side!") also have a similar effect of emphasizing our positive self-scheme and improving our self-esteem.

Seen in this light, self-affirmation can be a helpful process. Sometimes all we need is to feel good about ourselves. However, if applied in the wrong circumstances or abused, it can lead us to form the wrong perceptions about our situations or even to complacency and self-indulgence, as well as hamper our growth and maturity. In seemingly hopeless situations, we sometimes need practical guidance or actual assistance to help us overcome the problems (e.g. the reality may not be as hopeless as it seems); sometimes we just need to go to the root of the problem and learn to face it headon. Similarly, at times when we are criticized we need to be able to tell whether a criticism is genuine or "constructive" and that we really do need to improve, instead of dismissing all criticisms as personal attacks. Maturity/experience and religious faith often plays an important role in this aspect.

In Christianity, we have been told to deny ourselves. The following scriptural verses refer:

• Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (NIV, Matthew 16:24)
• Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. (NIV, Mark 8:34)
• Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. (NIV, Luke 9:23)
  
  Source - International Bible Society (cited in http://www.christianitytoday.com)

Self-denial is consistent with our desire to love God and our "neighbours" more than ourselves - this is the basic principle of Christianity and Judaism (from the ten commandments):

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (NIV, Mark 12: 30-32)

Self-denial can be a difficult thing to do. The easy way out for us is to love ourselves more. Give ourselves 101 excuses for selfish behavior. Ignore people's criticisms and dismiss them as bitter envy. Its ok, they don't understand what we are going through (*pat each other on the back*).

There is a time for self affirmation and a time for self reflection and denial. Too often people tend to do only what makes them feel good about themselves - unless some of us are sado-masochistic or holding "extreme" religious views we usually wouldnt choose to deny ourselves. There is even a whole culture that celebrates hedonism, which to me is an extreme form of self-affirmation based on pleasure. A lesser extreme is a often-touted value or principle in life that "so long as we are happy, whatever we do will be ok" - this is not wrong provided that we understand what is "true happiness". If we were to embrace hedonism and adopt its core value of pursuing pleasure as the highest goal in life, we will never learn to overcome our sinful nature and "control the flesh" - the lusts and desires and worldly passions - and to focus instead on God and being holy.

I am learning how to tell when is the right time for self affirmation and when is the right time for self reflection and denial. Its not easy but I believe that God will guide me. If I am willing to be guided, of course.