16 Lessons from The School Of Life - Alain de Botton - #1015

Where do you think self-esteem comes from? Um, gosh, I wish we knew. I mean, I think the the first thing to say is it's a bit of a mystery. If we knew how to bottle this stuff, you know, if you look at the differences between what human beings achieve, it isn't easily explained by intelligence. Everything shows that, that um, broadly speaking, uh, you know, intelligence accounts for

the smaller portion of the massive differences in achievement. And that's galling. It's it it it isn't what the school system is really about. And I think, you know, a lot of achievement is about imagination and it's about breaking through obstacles to um dreaming of a better world, a more interesting world, etc.

Self-esteem is somewhere in that story because I think self-esteem is about saying, it might happen with me. This thing could be, I could be in charge of this thing, whatever it is. And I think class plays a role here. One of the great injuries of a working class background is that it tends to give you a sense that other people are controlling the world and you have to negotiate the obstacles they put in place, but you don't get to remove those obstacles. You just have to work your way around them.

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