All of us want that every other person should like us. Once we graduate, we expect that all of our juniors and our classmates should remember us and talk about us not just them we want our relatives and family friends to talk about us in gatherings. Let me ask you what is going to happen if you are not accepted or remembered by everyone? You know that nothing will happen but this feeling is in your mind. The reason behind, we are groomed to think this way, even we watch in the movies that the protagonist is eminent and loved by everyone but in reality it is all scripted and you cannot become like him/her. Even if you start turning yourself into someone which you are not, and try to get everybody’s attention sometimes you start doing wrong or unethical things. If you feel like you have been pushing limits often just to please someone going out of your way and against your just to be liked by someone else, then pause and think to yourself if it is actually worth the efforts. Try giving yourself a priority once and see if another one accommodates to it. Do you think it is logical to do something just for somebody’s attention and is it even justified?

This is prevalent in schools and colleges where there are few individuals that are popular and they are perceived to be having extraordinary personas. Most individuals around these ‘popular’ students have a fondness to be their friends and be liked. If they even include you they are not going to love you the way your friends do. It doesn’t matter if people don’t remember you just think, are they really important to you? You should always stay with the people who like you and you won’t have to put efforts. So, being remembered and loved by someone who has nothing to do with you and investing your time on them is foolishness. This also happens in gatherings that you want your relatives or family friends to talk about you and appreciate you. Believe me, you are going to laugh on yourself when you grow up and also regret, that I should have rather invested my time on my career. I agree that this is the time to hang out and make friends, but there is never time for someone where you have to pretend to be someone else. Always, do whatever you feel is right for you.

IT IS FINE NOT TO BE REMEBERED AND LOVED BY EVERYONE IF IT COSTS YOU YOUR HAPPINESS AND PEACE OF MIND…

-Masoom Kotecha
-Third Year BPT

“You Are Enough”
&
“Believe in Yourself”

This is what we have heard since childhood. We get these messages from television, movies, books, legends, parents and teachers. They are easy to understand but are really difficult when it comes to their application. It is always said that self-esteem is very important but here comes the question what is self-esteem and why it is important?

Self-esteem is an individual’s evaluation of their own worth. It encompasses beliefs about oneself as well as victory, despair, etc. it is very important part of happiness and success. So, exact meaning of self-esteem is how much you value and appreciate yourself which means you have to appraise yourself for example, you can appraise the way you dress up, your looks, behaviors, beliefs, etc. If one has self-esteem, he/she can achieve great things in life on the other hand having too low self-esteem can make you feel defeated and depressed. Since, teenage is the learning and growing age you should always be energetic and curious because if you are feeling low you won’t be able to learn new things. Although imposing sense of self-esteem and giving too much importance to ourselves can damage relationships. So, extreme levels of self-esteem can damage relationships and one can end up making bad choices. So, ideally you have to balance between the two. Self-esteem is essential without it you won’t be able to excel in whatever you do and you won’t believe that you are capable of success.
Deterioration of self-esteem can be because of your parents, relatives, friends or teachers may have compared you at least once with someone, their intention may not be bad but in this way sometimes you develop this habit of comparing yourself with someone else who has achieved more than you. When you are not able to achieve it you develop inferiority complex and then your focus deviates from your abilities to inabilities. For example, if you are not good at painting like your sibling you’ll start feeling low. This was scenario one, now the scenario two is that as teenager you want to be liked and accepted by everyone. So, you start doing things that are not good and against your principles and to get acceptance from people you make bad decisions for example, to seek attention and increase acceptability you start making unethical decisions which later results in dent in self-esteem. What you don’t realize is that you are doing it under the influence of your peers and not because you want to. scenario three is that you don’t realize that all this is in your head. Maybe, you think that people are letting you down by comparing but that may not be true. This must be all in your head. What I am trying to say is it is self-build and is all in your head. This is how self-esteem issues start. I know you all must have heard that everybody is different but that is very true. You should always try to achieve things in life not because your neighbor, sibling, colleague or friend has achieved it or to outshine someone but because you want to do it for yourself. I know everybody have felt this and it is absolutely fine. Everybody must have been compared to someone and felt that they are not good enough and their dignity must have been damaged. How you can overcome this is by talking to your family or friends whoever you trust and believe me they will agree with you as they must also have gone through this.

Reports show that females face more self-esteem issues than males. According to statistics about 75% of girls with low self-esteem reported engaging in negative activities like cutting, drinking, smoking or disordered eating. Due to low self-esteem about 20% of the teens end up having depression and anxiety.

So, to avoid all these problems what you need to do is to self-evaluate, try to find out what is the cause and ask yourself what is making you feel low and defeated. I am sure you will get the answer. You need to accept yourself as you are to get your dignity back. You need to convert your weaknesses to strengths and accept your flaws. You have to learn to say ‘NO’ to things you don’t like or to things which are wrong. You have to work hard daily and improve yourself. Work on your interests. Find out what makes you feel happy and what you enjoy doing the most. You need to do what scares you doesn’t mean jumping from the building, the point is doing something you have not done before as you were scared of doing that and you need to come out of your comfort zone. One thing that really helps is that you have to feel confident about yourself. Sometimes it is okay not to score 90% and becoming the youngest CEO. These all things will help you in the long run not only to gain your self-esteem back but will also help you grow and your motto should be:
“DO BETTER, BE BETTER”

-Masoom Kotecha
-Third Year BPT

Whatever I have written I am really sure you all must be familiar with it and must have heard somewhere but the thing is it is high time we should start applying all these things in our lives. As writing and reading all this and then forgetting about it is not going to help.

AS I BEGIN MY ARTICLE I OFTEN WONDER WHAT THE AUDIENCE MIGHT THINK OF ME. ALL OF US HAVE SUCH THOUGHTS.WHILE ALL OF US WORK ON SOMETHING, WE TEND TO THINK UPON THE LIKES AND DISLIKES OF PEOPLE.

DON’T WORRY I’M NOT GOING TO LECTURE YOU ON APNE DIL KI SUNO, LOG JO SOCHTE HAI SOCHNE DO. THE GREATEST FEAR PEOPLE HAVE IS FACING THE FEAR. WE ALWAYS AVOID THE SITUATIONS WE ARE AFRAID OF. I AM NOT ASKING YOU TO PLAY KHATRON KE KHILADI AT YOUR HOME. WHAT I AM TRYING TO SAY HERE IS DO SOMETHING THAT YOU THINK WILL GO WRONG. WHAT IF PEOPLE DON’T LIKE MY IDEA, WHAT IF MY BOSS DIDN’T LIKE MY PRESENTATION, ETC. I KNOW IT IS EASY TO SAY BUT DON’T YOU THINK IT IS ALL IN OUR HEAD? ONCE WE FACE OUR FEAR, WE WON’T BE AFRAID OF DOING THE SAME THING ANYMORE. AT TIMES WE DO NOT DO THINGS NOT BECAUSE WE DON’T WANT TO BUT BECAUSE WE’RE TOO AFRAID OF DOING THEM EVEN AFTER KNOWING THAT IT CAN BRING US PROGRESS AND JOY. THIS IS WHAT I REFER TO AS THE GREAT ESCAPE. THE SHORTCUT THAT WE TAKE. IF YOU ALWAYS CHOOSE THE EASY PATH YOU WILL STOP DOING THINGS THAT ARE CRUCIAL.

WE KNOW IT IS WRONG BUT WE ALWAYS MAKE PEACE WITH OUR DECISION. ALL OF US NEED TO STEP OUT OF OUR COMFORT ZONES OR ELSE IT IS LIKELY THAT OUR FUTURE AIN’T BED OF ROSES BUT THAT OF THRONES. IN THE MOVIE DEAR ZINDAGI THE CHARACTER JUG RIGHTLY STATES THAT KABHI KABHI EASY OPTION CHOOSE KARNA CHAHIYE BUT KABHI KABHI AND YES I ABSOLUTELY AGREE. WE CANNOT ALWAYS AVOID OUR FEARS. THERE ALWAYS COMES A TIME WHEN WE HAVE TO FACE OUR FEARS, INSTEAD OF MOVING AWAY PULL UP YOUR SOCKS AND CONFRONT THEM WITH CONFIDENCE. FACING CERTAIN SITUATION CAN MAKE US SELF-ASSERTIVE AND STRONG. EXPOSING YOURSELF TO YOUR FEARS WILL HELP YOU OVERCOME YOUR ANXIETY. DON’T BE TOO HASTY IN DECISION MAKING. TAKE YOUR TIME AND YOU’LL COME UP WITH A SOLUTION.

Masoom Kotecha
Third Year B.P.T