Thought I start afresh ....

... and unrelated to my other blog, which dealt with illness, treatment and recovery. This one hopefully will be a more fun & life blog. Hope I don't bore people too much with my ramblings.

But where in the bigger picture of things do I start? Maybe with the fact, that I somehow have become quite a different person recently. Ok, ok, so that's related to the illness again ... or maybe it would have happened anyway? My life as such isn't very interesting. I don't really work, but instead hang around at home most of the day. This gives me plenty of time to contemplate life, the universe and everything, and believe me, lots of the things I come up with are not very pretty. Sometimes they almost drive me round the bend!!! But I am sure I will share some of these mad thoughts here eventually.

A friend mentioning low self esteem on her blog recently, made me explore the topic further, obviously in relation to myself. Hmmm .... I used to suffer so badly from it, that at times it almost destroyed my life. Hence the whole palaver of decades of drug addiction, booze and abusive relationships. Oh yes, sometimes I was even the abuser. I am not proud of it! But have I really still got low self esteem? Not sure, seems I have come to a point where I just dont give a shit anymore. Not about the way I am, but the way others perceive me. Well, let's face it: We do define ourselves through others, or more precisely what we think others think of us (which is usually wrong anyway). And when friends, family, mates, bosses etc do criticise us, then quite often it's not constructive. Quite often they have their own agenda and it's just easier to pass judgement on others than face their own demons. I think, now in my advancing years, I am actually able to spot the fine line of positive and negative criticism. The latter I simply don't take on board anymore. And when I realise that I am defining my self-respect and self-worth through others, than more often than not, I will ask the people concerned, if they really think that lowly of me. The answers are quite regularly a surprise. Judging from all this I reckon my self-esteem isn't that bad after all. But I am the first to admit that it still does need work. I could be a lot more confident and outgoing. I am surmising that I might not change that in this life time. Maybe I get another shot at it. One can only hope!