Dove Self-Esteem Project

In continuation of its famous Dove Campaign for Real Beauty from 2004 showing how much work went into making models beautiful, now Dove has launched the Dove Self-Esteem Project. Once again it's tapping into a major pain point for today's parents that will keep them fully engaged in its latest campaign.

"New research by the Dove Self-Esteem Project found that social media is harming the mental health of 3 in 5 kids. Join us, along with Common Sense Media and Parents Together Action, in supporting legislative change to make social media safer."

The Dove Self-Esteem Project is the largest provider of self-esteem education of its kind. We’re on a mission to boost confidence in 250 million young people around the world – by 2030 ?? Together, we can reach millions more.? https://www.dove.com/us/en/dove-self-esteem-project.html

It looks like they've copied the format of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals by defining actionable milestones toward solving this problem in the form of education and legislation. All the self-esteem boosting is around the topic of how to build confidence.

My Commentary

There are two forms of confidence:

1) Confidence based on what we have, meaning to what extent we're stronger than the environment.

2) Confidence in the environment, meaning how strong the environment is and the fact that we're a part of it, which means that our confidence depends on the environment.

Genuine self-confidence is only attained through a loving and supportive environment. Shame is the fear of feeling less than others. It's the fear of hurting or pushing aside our ego, which is constantly focused on self-fulfillment at the expense of others. The pride that comes from wanting to control and take advantage of others is negative, empty, and stupid. Even learning self-acceptance won't help.

We can only attain psychological freedom and resilience when we build mini-societies of people who share a special lofty goal of overcoming the human ego together.

We can only attain psychological freedom and resilience when we build mini-societies of people who share a special lofty goal of overcoming the human ego together. They will achieve a type of positive pride that comes from the desire to control oneself. They protect themselves from hurting and advance humanity by adhering to the rule, “Do not do to your friend what you hate.”

We feel confident when we are hopeful about the future. When we have something to look forward to, we have a reason to live. If we lose it, we lose hope, happiness, and might even become suicidal. The future is more important to us than the present because the present will pass, but if the future is bleak, it makes everything black.

We need to focus on restoring our confidence in the future, and our happiness along with it. We can only achieve this by adapting our society to the integrated reality of our lives. In other words, we need to learn to care for one another to the extent that we are dependent on each other.

Up until now our happiness was dependent on our ability to beat the environment. But from now on our happiness will depend on how much we tie ourselves to the environment. How much we'd rather focus on investing in the environment, because it's very important to us.