Inherent self-worth

* This post ties in with my last post, and showcases my lack of a solid foundation of morality. I can never seem to stick with my old "right and wrong" or my new "wise or unwise" method, and I flop back and forth between the two depending on my mindset of the time. :(


I've recently come across an unhelpful mental setting I have. I've always had -- since birth, I think -- a very low self-esteem. So low, in fact, that I considered suicide multiple times throughout my life as a way to finally rid the world of my disgusting, burdening self. I'm now largely over it, yet I still have little traces that remain with me that I have to work out. One of them is a rather large trace.



See, in order to get out of that mindset, I decided to find an objective way to prove that I'm not a burden. I became heavily concerned with morals, service, understanding, edification of others, and basically everything I possibly could in order to prove to myself that I am a good person. It was slow and horribly imperfect, but I eventually got to the point where I could look at someone that had committed crimes, or look at someone who was leeching off of his or her parents without trying to do anything on his or her own whatsoever, and think, "Yes, I'm better than that person." I got enough of these "I'm better than him or her" messages that I was able to say that, although I'm maybe not a good person, I'm at least not a bad person.


However, two ugly things remained. One of which is that I've been constantly putting others down to put myself up, which in turn has also given me a sort of "holier than thou" attitude. This is able to be fixed I think, and although I lapse on how well I'm overcoming it, I do believe I'm slowly overcoming it.


The other issue, I believe, is a bit more prominent.


Although I had found an objective way to look at myself and say that I'm not such a sucky person, the issue is that I haven't been able to subjectively confront myself and say "you're okay." I've then clung on to my morals as a way of keeping my self-esteem afloat -- which emotionally clashes with my wife on occasion. She is a very open-minded, forgiving, and accepting person; in her mind, I'm a totally good person just because I'm a good person, end of story -- there's no thinking or reasoning or anything to prove. She also has looser morals than I do, and on occasion watches a movie that I, with my higher moral standards, disagree with.


This came to my attention recently when I went to watch a movie with my family. My wife asked me why I like to watch movies with my family, but not with her -- after I did some self-probing and research, I answered that because I hold my morals so high and because my morals are the only thing keeping from wanting to kill myself at times, if I watch a movie with a crapload of material that clashes with my morals then I can quite easily fall into a depression -- and often, the movies she likes are rated R (or 16+ in her area).


This caused me to reevaluate a variety of things about myself, namely:
If I'm trying to be a good person to be happy, yet there are happy people without such rigid morals, am I being self-destructive?
If no one else is taking offense at something while I am because of my morals, I'm only creating offense... right?
If something is causing distance between me and my wife, I believe it's not good. Would it be better for my wife to obtain higher morals or for me to drop my morals?
If I do drop my morals, how do I find a subjective way to accept, forgive, and love myself without being depressed?
Mostly, what is it about myself that I hate so dearly?


I can't find a solid answer to that last question. I suck and cause problems because I am here, because I was born, and because I'm a sucky person that causes problems.  I can neither prove nor disprove that -- it's illogical and it's entirely emotionally based, which is what I feel most of our minds and personalities are based off of.


Although... a thought occurs to me. I often equate bad deeds to bad people -- for example, liars tell lies, and that's bad, so therefore a liar is a bad person.


But perhaps this is incorrect of me. Maybe everyone is a good person, regardless of who they are, and they may simply do bad things because of a false notion or idea in their mind. For example, a thief might try to steal someone's TV and wind up shooting and killing a resident before fleeing. It might not be so much that he wanted to take that person's TV and that he wanted to murder someone. It might be more that he wanted a TV and it was unfair that so many rich people had fancier ones than his, and it was his right to have a new TV. Then when he was caught by the resident, he panicked and shot the person -- not to kill the person, but to not get caught. Of course, stealing and murdering like that is wrong no matter how you cut it, but perhaps it's less "He's a mean person that should go to jail" and more "He's doing things that he feels are right but in reality are harming society, even though he doesn't know it."


It gives an edge of understanding to other people, as well as a less-condemning "You're a bad person, so you're screwed for life" mentality. More like "You did something wrong, so let's correct it and don't do it again."


That would be better for everyone, I think, were I to think of everyone like that. Yet I come across an issue... I'd lose my status of "I'm better than X person," making me... boring and average, which is to say "unworthy of much of anything." That only points out how deep my lack of self-esteem goes, I think... perhaps I can work this out. Maybe I can get better at this whole thing.


I just hope I don't hurt anyone getting there. ._.;


There is work to be done... much work to be done. I will depart and think, and hopefully do. Thanks for reading. :)