Medium

5 min readAug 10, 2021

The Importance of Self

Hey everyone! I’m here to bore you about something really important you care nothing about. So you can skip this.
I’m kidding. You should care. We’re talking about YOU. Yes you. I wasn’t kidding when I said it was important. And before you roll your eyes, I’m not here to tell you how imagining your best self will get you there in the blink of an eye, or how to start a restaurant with a spoon and a plate. But if there’s one thing motivational speakers have right, it’s the necessity of self-worth, self-esteem and understanding you. I call it the importance of self.
What am I talking about? I’ll start with self concept. Sans the grammar, it’s basically how you see yourself as an emotional, social, and spiritual being, and understand who you are, "who you are" being the real question here. A major reason why this is relevant is most people don’t have a full understanding of themselves and as such aren’t able to achieve many of the things they desire to achieve.
Now there are many tools that claim to aid in understanding yourself. There are personality tests, where you find categories like Sanguine, Choleric, Melancholic, Phlegmatic and a new addition (that I can’t seem to remember the name of), IQ tests, EQ tests and even tests that tell you what you should be doing with your life. As much as these help, and trust me they do, stopping here isn’t enough. You have to realise that tests were created to categorise people for easy understanding, testing, and experimentation. And as humans we are fundamentally unique enough to differentiate ourselves from labels and classes. I personally find it almost impossible to identify with any one category in any test I do; I always end up redoing and getting grossly differing results every time. Don’t believe me? Then let’s look at one of the most basic scenarios.
Look around you. Yes, you’re probably at home, but you’re still surrounded by humans that have the same physical structures that we have, but we never look alike. Sure, similarities may exist but no one can ever look exactly alike. Even twins have distinct differences, and why? Because of their uniqueness, and this uniqueness is what we are striving to understand here.
Now that we’ve established that it is, why do you think understanding self is important? One thing we need to understand is when we come to terms with ourselves, then we can achieve self actualization. For those not in the know, it’s basically saying achieving your full potential. Maxing out your powers, if you will. All of us unique individuals come equipped with tools that we have acquired through our daily activities or are born with to help solve a problem, actualize a dream and make the world a better place. Simply put, self-understanding leads to a fulfilled life, and really, what could be better?
Ok, it’s important. We understand now. Get to it! Hold your horses people, I’m getting there.
There are a lot of things involved in self. I like having bullet points, so I’ll give you three: self-image, self packaging and the ideal self. Hold on to them for me, will you?
We’ll start with self image. I’m sure you’ve heard it before. No? Well, it’s more often called self esteem. And for those of us who have always wondered, esteem means respect and admiration. Literally. I just checked. That therefore means that self-esteem is equivalent to self respect and self admiration. And you can neither respect or admire yourself if you don’t see yourself in the right light. And that’s where self image comes in.
You’ve probably heard everything there is to know about beauty in the eye of the beholder and everyone is important and special, so I’ll spare you the story. Not that they’re wrong in any way, of course. But I’d rather take a different approach. It’s simple really. Look at the people you hold in high esteem. Like for real, not the ones we obviously know are bad for us. Ever wondered why? It’s because they have something that the world needs, and have found an ideal way to share it. What makes them special apart from that? Absolutely nothing. We’re all the same. We all have something the world needs. Read that again and think about it. Really. You may not know what it is yet, but we- the world- need it desperately. Imagine being the solution to somebody’s problem, and I doubt you can stay down for long. Your ego won’t allow it. Now all we need to figure out is how to actually be that solution. That’s where packaging comes in.
Since I love business and money, the first thing that comes to mind when I see the word packaging is literally packaging. Like the biscuit wrapper or the indomie carton and countless other things. What packaging does is protect and increase the appeal of the content to the potential customer. And it could be any of three things; an overpromise(disappointment when you open), an ideal package, or an understatement(they’re selling themselves short). It’s the same thing for people. Most times we go for either extreme: we either lie so bad that it’s painful when the truth comes out, or we completely underrate ourselves under the guise of humility. Neither will get you anywhere in the long run. Your best bet is to just be you. Because really, how many times have you been disappointed when the Burger peanut you bought is full of air? And I’m sure there are some things you’d never touch because the nylon looks “ughhh". So present yourself to the world as the solution it needs without adding or subtracting anything, and you’ll find yourself better off.
And this here is the perfect topping: Ideal self. It’s the pinnacle of it all, the best you possible. Once you know the world needs you, you feel good. Then you find what the world needs, even better. You get it out there: the crowd goes wild! All that’s left is to get better and better, and discover more of yourself. It might take a while. If you have multiple things to offer, it might take forever. But if it screams impossible to you, say right back in these words "Challenge Accepted!".