Yes! People who don't like themselves are a pain in the neck1!

Usually, people with a poor self-image use one of two irritating2 strategies3. They either:

a) criticize you a lot or

b) they criticize themselves a lot.

STRATEGY A: They criticize you a lot. They figure4 that by criticizing other people they can feel better about themselves.

Let's take Fred, who feels inferior5. Fred thinks he has a big nose and piggy eyes. He also secretly feels a bit stupid.

So what's his strategy to feel better about himself? He criticizes all his friends. He has names for them like “Flathead”, “Chicken Legs” and “Dogbrain”. Whenever someone else makes a mistake, he announces it to the whole class. (He probably doesn't even realize he criticizes people—or why he does it.)

If you have parents, friends or brothers and sisters who don't like themselves—they might criticize you and everyone around them. Just remember that they criticize you because they have a problem. If you remember that they are actually hurting inside, you won't get so upset by their behaviour.

STRATEGY B: Some people who don't like themselves criticize themselves a lot. They use reverse6 psychology¹...

Take Mary who doesn't like herself. She's always telling you, “You are prettier than me. You are smarter. Nobody likes me.” She's hoping that you will reply, “No Mary! You are clever. You are beautiful.” After a while, people like Mary get on your nerves7!

In a nutshell8

When we don't like ourselves, we irritate² other people. We also put ourselves through a lot of stress. When we accept ourselves a little better, we don't play these games.

How Can I Like Myself﹖

In our hearts, most of us believe we should be doing better. We think that we should have gotten higher grades. We want to be popular and hang out with9 the “in”10 crowd. We feel we don't measure up to11 our parents' expectations. Our parents help to confirm12 this idea when they ask, “Why can't you be more like your brother?”

Whenever you are feeling low, be your own best friend. Accept that, up to now, you have lived your life the best way you know how. No one sets out13 to screw up14 their life! Like anyone, you've done the odd stupid thing. With more information you'll likely do better in the future.

Liking³ yourself means forgiving yourself. If you have made some serious mistakes, if you have hurt some people—and yourself—feeling guilty won't help.

If you are feeling guilty about something, you have already suffered enough. Being guilty for another six months won't help anybody.

Forget perfection⁴ and aim for improvement.

It's a funny thing. When you forgive yourself for your own mistakes, you automatically15 begin to let others off the hook16 for the same things.

“But I＇m Not Brilliant...”

You might look at yourself and say, “I'm not as beautiful as my sister, I'm not as talented as my friends and I'm not brilliant at anything! How can I feel good about me?”

Fact: Nobody is good at everything and most of us have those thoughts!

But here's the lowdown17! Talent and beauty are very useful—but there are plenty of talented and beautiful people around whom we don't necessarily admire. And some of them are a pan18 in the butt19!

The qualities most of us value above all others are honesty, courage, persistence20, generosity21 and humility22. Take a look at this list and you'll find something interesting. You aren't born with these things. You develop them. Anyone can have them! If you want self-respect, and respect from others, you don't have to be an Einstein or a super-model.

You simply work at developing your own honesty, determination, generosity⁵, humility⁶ and courage. It is called “character23”.

In a nutshell

How you feel about yourself is in your hands.

确实如此！不喜欢自己的人很讨厌！

通常，自我感觉不好的人会采用两种策略，要么老是挑剔别人，要么总是挑剔自己。

策略一：老是挑剔别人。他们以为挑别人的错就能自我感觉良好。

比如说弗雷德吧，他就觉得自己不如别人。弗雷德感到自己长了一个大鼻子、两只猪眼睛，还暗自感觉脑子有点笨。

那他想感觉好一点怎么办呢？于是就挑所有朋友的毛病，给他们起一些怪名字，什么“平头”啊，“鸡腿”啊，“狗脑”啊等等。每当有人犯错误，他就对全班同学宣布。 (他很可能压根儿就没意识到在批评别人，或者为什么要这么做。)

如果你父母、朋友或兄弟姊妹不喜欢自己，他们可能挑剔你和身边的每一个人。请记住，他们挑剔你是因为他们有问题。其实他们内心有伤痛，记住这一点，你就不会对他们的行为感到特别心烦了。

策略二：有些不喜欢自己的人老说自己不好。他们的心理正好相反。

拿玛丽来说吧，她就不喜欢自己。她总对别人说，“你比我漂亮。你比我聪明。谁都不喜欢我。”她心里其实希望对方这样回答，“不对，玛丽！你很聪明，很漂亮。”不用多久，玛丽这种人就会令人生厌。

简言之

不喜欢自己，就会去烦别人。同时自身也会承受很大的压力。对自己好一点，就不会去玩那些烦人的把戏了。

怎样才能喜欢自己？

内心里，大多数人都认为自己应该比现在强。我们认为考试分数应该再高一些。我们想受人欢迎，跟那些“时髦的”人在一起。我们感到达不到父母的期望。父母也证实了这一点。他们会问，“你就不能向你哥哥多学一点？”

无论何时你感觉不良，你要做自己最亲密的朋友。要承认到目前为止，你是在以你所知的最佳方式生活。谁都不会成心破坏自己的生活。你跟别人一样做了些奇怪而愚蠢的事。你如果知道得多一些，将来就会做得好一些。

喜欢自己意味着原谅自己。如果你犯了严重的错误，如果你伤害了别人，伤害了自己，内疚是不管用的。

如果你为某事感到内疚，你已经受到了足够的折磨。再内疚半年，对人对己都无济于事。

忘记完善，立志改善

这是很有趣的一件事。一旦你原谅自己的过错，就会自动不再追究别人同样的错误。

“但是我不很出色……”

你也许会将自己审视一番，说，“我没姐姐那么漂亮，也没朋友那么聪明，我哪方面都不出色！叫我怎么感觉良好？”

事实是：没有谁是万能的，而且大多数人都有你这种想法。

不过真相是这样的！才智和美貌很有用，但是聪明漂亮的人我们并不一定就羡慕，这样的人在我们周围大有人在。再说有些人不过是徒有虚名而已！

大多数人最看重的品质是诚实、勇敢、顽强、慷慨和谦逊。只要看看这一串词语，就能发现一件有趣的事。这些品质不是与生俱来的，是后天培养的。人人都能拥有！想自重并受人尊重，不一定非得是爱因斯坦或超级名模。

你只需努力培养自己的诚实、坚毅、慷慨、谦逊和勇敢就行了。这就叫“品格”。

简言之

自我感觉如何全看你如何把握。