What is the difference between self-esteem and self-respect? || Acharya Prashant, with youth (2013)
Student : Sir, what is the difference between self-esteem and self-respect?
Speaker : Apaar has asked the difference between self-esteem and self-respect. There is a great difference. Just going close to these two words and looking directly at them will tell us the difference. ‘Esteem’ comes from the same root from where ‘Estimation’ comes. Do you understand ‘Estimation’? You estimate something when you do not know it fully. ‘Estimation’ is ‘approximate’. ‘To estimate something’ is to know its limits and hence determine its size in a rough crude way.
Are you getting it?
To esteem something is to limit it; to esteem something is to estimate it. To say that ‘this has this much of size and no more’. ‘Self-estimation’ is hence self-image and that too a vague, hazy image. ‘Self-esteem’ is a self-image, an image that you have about yourself. The thing about this image, this estimation, this esteem is that it is static and has come from others. I think that I am strong and intelligent because somebody has told this to me. Everybody says ‘I am beautiful’, so I am beautiful. My self-esteem takes a particular shape, which is an image given by others.
You need to estimate only when you do not know, only when you do not know then you depend on others. Did you see the link?Estimation is not needed when you really know, when it is directly available.
If I ask you, if I ask somebody sitting at the back, what is the distance between your seat and this door? You will have to estimate because you don’t really, don’t exactly know. Am I right? But if I ask you, do you exist? Will you have to estimate or do you just know? How many of you are not wearing a wrist watch right now? Raise your hands. Alright.What is the time right now? Don’t look around; what is the time right now?
