My Mirror Image

It may be easy for some people to mix up the terms self-concept and self-esteem. After all, they both are focused on ourselves. However, there is significant differences. To explain in simple terms, self-concept can be thought of as how you see yourself. Self-esteem, on the other hand, is what you feel about yourself. Perhaps someone else has a different way to describe the differences. For me, that makes the most sense.

A mirror image of me...
educated and yet still learning, positive but frustrated, impatient but working on changing that, situational about everything, knowledgeable yet passive, creative yet lacking outlets, family-oriented which is growing deeper every day, focused on positive side of people, complex mind with so many ideas.

Some theorists believe that our self-concept is developed in the formative years. For the most part, I can look at my self-concept and believe that to be true. However, there are things that I believe have changed throughout life given my specific situations or feedback from others. Am I wrong? Perhaps, but is there a "wrong" answer? Perhaps not.

With school counseling as my true "love", I think we need to focus on children developing a positive self-concept - something that will stay with them throughout their entire lives (with fleeting changes perhaps), rather than self-esteem, which tends to be focused on how others see oneself. It can easily be seen how that could be more damaging in the future.

My self-concept today has been pretty icky - as I have spent most of the day sick in bed. I am sure that this will go away when I feel better and am able to accomplish more tasks, but right now I feel pretty un-accomplished (if that is a word!)