[yes]

let me try to make this as brief as possible:

when i was 10-14 y.o., i got the sense of being 'not good enough', 'an embarassment to my family (but loved despite it, which made it even worse)','solid but never excellent',etc. basically i felt like second-level goods, so to speak. a group of people in my class were the first-level goods. the details of how this happened don't matter, expect this was imposed by an authority (viewed as such both by me and my family). needless to say, this resulted in tons of insecurity, self-comparison to others, competitiveness, etc. i know in theory everybody's equal and there's no way to compare people, but a big part of me says - ya ya, that's just a cope out, because you're not good enough: nobody says "it's just a game" if they're winning kind of thing.

well - not surprisingly, i'd really like to shake this off, to liberate myself from all this endless comparing, from feeling secondary, from being hung up on approval from authorities, and so forth. i feel like i could really just BE if only i stopped feeling like there's some standard i'm not living up to and never will... in certain situations, the pressure to perform comes back to me and i panic and freeze - and if forced to do something, still panic until i get approval (and get depressed if its disapproval). silly stuff.

any advice? can anybody relate?

-yes

[carla]

The only person you need to please in your life is yourself. Who cares what others think. They either like you or they don't. If they don't it's their lose. Do what is going to make you happy. Within reason, if you live at home you still have rules to follow, you have to be morally respectful. But other then that it's your life.

[yes]

Carla, my mind agrees with you 100%. But i can't shake off the feeling that this is a cope-out. Of course I could never please everybody, but if only i could get approval from hmm - from everybody i look up to, at least somewhat. Wait a sec - that's a LOTTA ppl - i see good traits i admire in next to everybody. Hmm. Perhaps this IS about pleasing MYSELF, and i myself have adopted standards i cannot meet. Hm.

-yes

[carla]

Why is it you can't meet your standards? Maybe just lower them a tad once you have reached that increase them slightly until you have acomplished what it is that you want. It's hard to give advise when I don't know the whole situation and I understand that you may want to keep it private. If you like feel free to Pm me.

[Arabess]

Some self esteem issues resolve themselves as you get older and personal life events shape and mold you. You can read self help books, check related weeb sites.....but really....it just takes time to grow into your own shoes and be comfortable with the end result.

Try to work on not feeling 'less than' though. That feeling causes one to make "I'll settle for this" decisions, rather than holding out for what you really want and can accomplish in your life.

Doing something physical, like you mentioned wanting to sky dive, is really good for boosting the ego. It takes you to another realm of pushing yourself into doing something hard....and maybe a little scary. It's that same sort of energy which will help you thru other battles in your life.

It's within you to WIN...you've just got to find it.

[moimeme]

You have accomplished things. Rather than focusing your gaze on the part of the glass that is half-empty, train yourself to look at the part that's half-full and be happy and proud of it. This doesn't mean that you ought not have high standards or that you don't aspire to being better; but recognize that you've already taken steps and succeeded at things along the way. Use your successes as your springboard.