Society's Self-Esteem Crisis

Society causes low self-esteem, this hypothesis has been proven time after time.  I am not going to bore you about how models and magazines make girls (and guys) starve and purge until they are incapable of life, that has been said too many times before and is only one example of this problem.

The high demands set on today's youth gives way to a lack of confidence in even their most successful endeavors.  By setting performance standards--whether they be academic, athletic, or work-related--so high allowing only space for disaster.  Even if a kid continually succeeds, he becomes brainwashed into thinking nothing is ever good enough.  A minuses or even A's become counterfeit when he does not think something has improved.  This may seem like a good way to foster tangible improvements in individuals, but it is actually forcing youth to critique themselves so harshly that they can no longer appreciate, or even feel accomplishment, in their successes.  Nothing becomes good enough and everything becomes a competition to be won mainly by and against themselves. 

This floundering of the current youth may be what is leading to the early, "quarter", life crises.  Not only does this affect the individual in every aspect of his life--social, professional, or academic--but it will also eventually affect his own children--beginning a new cycle of high standards and low self-esteem.

Society must own up to the problems it perpetuates in today's (and tomorrow's) youth through its insistence on perfection in every aspect of one's life.  Tolerance and openness without judgement must be upheld and encouragement towards improvement and success must be used instead of the harsh rule of achievement.