Category: Self Worth

  • Of Narcissism and Doubt

    There is a dose of narcissism that is required if I am ever going to embark on writing that book about my rambles. I’ve despised such indulgences throughout my life because I’ve always felt like enough is never achieved to warrant such smugness or arrogance. I’ve been called all that and much more, but the opinions of others were usually just enough cause for brief moments of reflection and nothing more. Rarely did the condescension of others ever drag my spirit down. I was always very focused on dragging it down myself, so there was never room for others to get in on the action in that regard.

    Writing that book may prove to be the final release of all the clutter that contaminates my head space. However, it could also be the cause of even more clutter accumulating. I’m struggling to understand what my reason to write it will be. Will I write it because I believe I have a story worth sharing, or perspectives that are unique and potentially enlightening, or would I simply be writing it to finally secure the affirmation from the world that always seems to elude me?

    I still believe that what doesn’t break you only makes you more brittle. There is a point that we all reach in life, some sooner than others, where the trials and the struggles wear you down to a point where even the most basic of decisions becomes burdensome. When that happens to me, I’m reminded of how brittle I’ve become when faced with circumstances that echo the angst of the past. Trying to decide on whether or not to proceed with this book is akin to choosing to resurrect the tumultuous emotions that ripped through me each time I found myself staring insanity in the face. That insanity was not a reflection of my own state of mind, but rather the mindlessness of the troubled souls that I attracted far too often in my life.

    Every morbid joke I made about seeing the ugly side of ugly, or having more life in my years than most have years in their lives, and so much more all seem to taunt me now knowing that recalling all those lessons that informed my ramblings will test my resolve and my character, the outcome of which is anything but predictable. My book will not be a simple story, if a story at all. Perhaps it will be a collection of torment presented in a bouquet of beautiful words that bring life to the lie that this is a beautiful world as long as the words we use to describe it make it so.

    Pain will always remain what it is, regardless of whether we remember it or not. A life of selfless sacrifice does not always yield beauty. There are times, many times, when the sacrifices of others are simply the stepping stones of the self-obsessed. All this morbidity and sobriety does little towards guiding my decision about this book. Perhaps it’s not about the book at all. Perhaps it’s simply a symbol of my resistance towards acknowledging the gravity of the experiences of my life. Perhaps, writing that book will finally bring to the fore the crippling realisation that the beauty that I always pursued never existed to begin with, and the ugliness I saw in the souls of some was not just their veneer but in fact it was the essence of who they were. If that be true, I don’t think I want to contemplate what that may say about me.

  • A Self-Indulgent Reflection

    I have a  tendency to over commit. It’s a recent change in my personality, although many would probably accuse me of doing it for most of my life. I’m often seen as the guy that rarely says no, but my recent spate of over commitment is not a result of wishing to please, or trying to earn brownie points. Instead, it seems to be driven by a realisation that life is short.

    I know, that must sound weird, but when I mentioned this to someone recently, they looked visibly moved at the realisation of it, which almost visibly moved me. The realisation was a simple one although it suddenly feels as if the true gravity of it only dawned on me when I said it out loud. When I look back on my life it seems like a million things happened in the blink of an eye, yet when I look ahead, I often delude myself into believing that there’s much time remaining. But that’s the obvious part. Taking that moment to reflect on the million things that I’ve done relative to the million things that I would like to achieve, I suddenly realised that having the skills and resources to contribute towards courses that are infinitely larger than my own life almost demands that I make the contribution.

    It’s difficult to articulate, but the truth is, I’ve spent the better part of my life daydreaming about how I will be able to influence change on a global scale, but always feeling meek when I realise that I can barely influence it in my own life. That daydream is not so far fetched any longer. The occasional burst of interest by random strangers in thoughts that I share, and then seeing those thoughts shared with their circles, and even paraphrased in their own writing soon thereafter suddenly kindles that flame of hope that perhaps it is possible to influence that change that I wish to see in the world. For once, I’m not limited to the prejudices of the circles that I grew up in. I can, and do, finally engage in a circle of beings well beyond the bigotry of the society that spawned me.

    This must sound awfully clichéd but it’s true. I find when I engage with those around me and I share, without restraint or fear of ridicule, my true sentiments on what makes life worth living, or what makes death inviting, I get a very different response when compared with the times that I speak cautiously from fear of ridicule, or worse, dismissal. I’ve also realised that when I gave up the inclination to seek affirmation about what I think or what I do, I found a sense of empowerment within me that dwarfed any fears I previously had of interacting in a social setting. I went from being shy and introverted, to being bold, controversial, and able to address gatherings or strangers about topics I’m passionate about with barely any preparation or support at all.

    My old self always nags me to be cautious, and not to over indulge in the support or affirmation that I may receive at times, but a stronger more convincing voice in me denies the right of such doubt to be heard. I’ve stopped hiding behind diplomacy and political correctness, because the very hint of insincerity nauseates me. I’ve been on the receiving end of too many callous tongues that sought to subdue me rather than inspire me, almost always cloaked with the false pretences of wanting to protect or guide me. But the opinions of others holds no sway these days, because I’ve accepted (for some time now) that they just don’t get me, and never did. But I get them. I get them well, because while they were manipulating and soliciting popularity, I watched them closely, observing the doubts and the fears behind the bravado and the bullshit, and now when their opinions don’t matter any longer, I find it easy to use that knowledge of their weaknesses to cut through their defences and disarm them with the sharpest observations that leave them struggling to find their composure.

    It felt amazingly empowering at  first, but now it just feels normal. The realisation that most people are actors living out someone else’s fantasies and fads makes it easy to see people for what they are. Unfortunately more often than not, they’re not much to behold at all, except the few with substance that is.

  • Who do you love?

    I so often hear people giving others advice about how they should overcome negative sentiments about themselves, and I keep wondering if it’s realistic? The advice most often rendered is ‘love yourself’. Isn’t that the same like telling someone that is depressed to be happy?

    I think if we dislike ourselves, it’s not because we simply dislike ourselves, but in fact it’s because there is little that we’re doing or achieving that we find reason to be proud about. Either that, or we’re seeking affirmation from quarters that are uninterested or oblivious to how important they are in our lives. So when someone seems not to like themselves, when they’re self-harming, being reckless with their health or well-being, or just being morbid about life, I somehow doubt that telling them to love themselves is going to change all that.

    I really believe that happiness is not a choice, but is in fact a state that is achieved as a result of other conditions or achievements in our lives. Similarly I would argue that dislike for oneself is a result of inactivity or lack of achievement in things that would bring one joy. I guess, at the risk of over-simplifying it, I think it all comes down to what we use as points of reference in our lives. Those points of reference can sometimes be role models, or at other times it could simply be peer pressure. But identifying what about those role models or peers it is that influences us to want to aspire to fit their expectations is key to realising whether or not the reasons for such self-dislike is in fact warranted to begin with.

    But even that doesn’t quite answer the question, or resolve the issue. I think the low self esteem finds its roots first in trying to please others, which is easy enough to set in during childhood when we least realise the impact of such a disappointment. This later serves as a distraction that leads us to believe that just because we didn’t measure up to our chosen points of reference, we’re incapable of achieving anything meaningful in our lives. I can barely recall the number of times that I assumed the best of someone, immersed myself into the relationship relative to what prestige they enjoyed in my mind, only to meet a rude awakening when they behaved far short of what I believed their true nature to be.

    Sometimes I think we just expect too little from ourselves, and too much from others. Or perhaps that’s just a vicious cycle as well. Our expectations of others are equally as high as their expectations of us, but their expectations of themselves is just as low as our expectations of ourselves. So while we’re beating ourselves up and restraining ourselves from realising our true potential, we’re betraying the expectations of someone else, while they’re doing the same to us. Such is the cycle of stupidity when we measure our self-worth by the veneer of society.

    I guess the point is that if we are going to choose a role model, or an ideal to aspire to, we need to be sure that what we’re setting as an objective is in fact the reality of what we really want.

  • Finding My Way

    I have a lot that I want to pursue, explore, or share in my efforts to unravel or unpack the unanswered questions around me. I think sometimes that I should in fact write that book that many friends, colleagues, and some professional acquaintances often nagged me about, but then I wonder if there is anything new that I can add to the already burgeoning stores of narratives that someone thought was special enough to share. One of the problems with this ease of accessibility to sharing your thoughts is that everything fast becomes clichéd because everyone has a pearl of wisdom to drop all over the place. I wonder then if the new challenge is not to string together meaningful fresh insights, but rather to collate the clichés in a way that brings sanity to the noise, or beauty to the jagged edges of everyone’s desire to be noticed?

    My life is less than ordinary. It always has been. I always imagined ordinary to be a normal home, with a normal family, normal parents, with general growing pains and the usual social circles to round it all up. Children that have a healthy dose of sibling rivalry, but a healthier dose of family unity. Parents that each play their own parts equitably so that a vague sense of order and balance resonates through the home. Overall, there’s a general sense of wholesomeness accompanied by an unashamed sense of mediocrity in celebrating the little life stages that each of the kids make it through, while the parents grow content with having put their kids through school, and then maybe college or university, followed by marrying them off into good families to start that entire cycle again.

    That’s not my life. Never has been. Improving on that would be extraordinary, but less than that must then be less than ordinary. That would be my life. Less ordinary, and somewhat weird. Part of the weirdness was instilled at an early age when I realised that I was not like my siblings, so seeking affirmation from them for what interested me was never an option. My parents had their own distractions, so seeking out fatherly guidance was not an option either. And so started the troubled journey of finding my own way in life.

    There’s a boon that accompanies such a journey, and that is the ability to forge new paths and take the less travelled roads (oh, those damned clichés ). The opportunity to make your own mistakes without having someone around to tell you ‘I told you so’, nor having someone around to constrain your thinking or creativity in line with their fears, or failures. But there’s a burden that accompanies every boon. That burden is the anguish you feel when you’re embarking on something really important, or at least want to, and there’s a room full of no one that you’re able to use as a sounding board. No one that you feel comfortable enough to share that passion with because you know that your reality is very different from theirs. Your frame of reference is different from theirs. Your self-imposed limitations, your fears, your desires, your perspective, is all different. So seeking sanity in their reflections is a futile exercise.

    At points like these I wonder if this is what it may feel like, in some small way, to be an orphan. To be without guides, or mentors, or pillars of strength. To instead find yourself to be that pillar of strength, that guide, and that mentor for others, with the means to guide you being not much more than a quirky ability to reflect while indulging, or to observe while acting, coupled with a resilience that can’t be explained. There’s a stubborn obstinacy within me that refuses to give way to convention. When I do fight that stubbornness in an attempt to ‘get along’, I find my health suffering because of the unnatural tension that it causes within me.

    The likely delusion in all this is that I seem to think that my circumstance is special. This world appears to be more dysfunctional than wholesome. Our drive for individual instant gratification has already eroded the sense of community that we all long for, but towards which most are not willing to contribute. This is sounding more like a brain dump than a post. Perhaps in that lies the secret of finding my way. Rather than internalising, perhaps there is much to be gained from verbalising my clutter, because once it’s out there in plain language, the sense or stupidity of it all becomes blatantly obvious, making it possible to sift through the muck so that I can find the gems that would lead me on to the next leg of my journey.

  • The Fragility of Trust

    A question I received from a friend this morning coincided with something I was considering yesterday. I wondered why it’s sometimes easy to trust, and at other times it’s nearly impossible. Why does it seem so easy for some to walk away from depression, while others are haunted with it for most of their lives? In fact, why is depression so closely linked to issues of trust and betrayal?

    I think that sometimes it’s a balance we have to strike between wanting to trust, and not caring about the potential of betrayal. At some point we will accept that there’s a certain amount of risk we’re willing to take because we’re confident enough to deal with the consequences of a potential breach of that trust. So the reality is that we trust more easily when we have a greater sense of self, or perhaps a greater level of confidence in our ability to be resilient in the face of betrayal. Unfortunately the very nature of the issue drives us to defend or protect our fragility and vulnerability in the aftermath of betrayal, and quite quickly, without noticing, we end up stuck in that cycle not realising that we’re only as vulnerable or as fragile as our ability to rise above it.

    I’ve previously said that a healthy self-esteem is the greatest gift any parent can give their child. That self-esteem must inform the way they view themselves, their choices, and the associated outcomes. It must teach them that no matter what bad things may happen to them in life, the only part of the encounter that defines them is how they chose to respond, and never what was presented. The power of choice, and more importantly, the realisation of that power of choice, is the key to unlocking our resilience. But resilience, like happiness and humility, are only end states, but not a skill or trait in itself. Our belief in our own principles and convictions, and our courage to stand up for it in the face of ridicule is what determines (in part) our level of resilience.

    Unless we believe in ourselves, we’ll find it impossible to believe in anyone else, and by extension, it will be impossible to trust. Under such circumstances, it’s easy to confuse a hopeless surrender and dependence on others as trust. When we undermine ourselves, we empower our enemies, and like they say, the friend of my enemy is my enemy. So it stands to reason that that is how we become our own worst enemies.

  • Random thoughts

    Browsing through my archives is somewhat surreal. At times it triggers stark reminders of forgotten moments, but sometimes it feels like I’m a stranger observing a struggling soul. Looking from the outside at someone that’s trying to find their way and not quite figuring it out. It’s strange and disconcerting, but there’s a rawness in the expression of emotion in my posts that reflected a sincerity that seems to be lost these days. I feel so guarded and safe in what I express, or even what I share. It’s as if I’ve suddenly become aware of the audience. I didn’t count on having an audience before. The audience, by their very presence, has tainted my focus, my sincerity, and my courage. I’ve become an attention-whore. And I hate it.

  • Humility and Happiness is not a choice

    We often look at humility and consider how it can’t be acquired, because the very effort to acquire humility will be the result of an arrogant indulgence. Then there is the cliché quoted by many that the profession of humility is in itself arrogance, which has much truth in it. What isn’t so obvious though is that the pursuit of humility is equally arrogant. Humility is similar to happiness. It can’t be acquired on its own, but is in fact the outcome of something else. That may sound absurd, but in reality, it’s not the act of trying to be of a happy disposition that makes us happy, but rather the satisfying outcomes of various activities and choices that leads to a state of happiness.

    Humility is something that we witness in others, but the moment we think of ourselves as humble, or we do something with the intention of being humble, then the underlying motivation for that would be that we’re considering ourselves to be pious or good, which is arrogance. So when you see someone that appears to be humble, consider that maybe their action is driven by shyness, insecurity, a lack of confidence, or many other attributes that undermine our ability to achieve our full potential, but because we can’t see what their motivation is to do what they do, we assume they’re humble.

    However, the pursuit of happiness within this context is not tainted in the same way that a pursuit of humility is. What we witness as humility is often not an intended humility on the part of the person that we’re observing. More often than not, humility is a result of insecurity, shame, modesty, shyness, embarrassment, etc. In other words, when someone is in a situation where they seem overwhelmed by the gravity of it, or the significance of it relative to their own stature, their act or response may appear humble even though the motivation behind it may be fear or disillusionment, or a feeling of being dis-empowered or overwhelmed.

    With happiness, the same principles apply. We often hear of people that appeared to be happy and carefree, only to hear of their suicide a few days later. Their appearance of happiness may have been a choice, but it obviously had no substance. This, along with a few other life experiences prompted me to reflect on the truth behind the statement that if we choose to be happy, we will be, and that no one can stop us from being so. This is dangerously false. It leads many to believe that simply making the choice is sufficient. It’s not. It never has been. Happiness has always been a state that was achieved when other aspects of my life were in line with my needs or expectations. Happiness was never something I experienced independent of those experiences.

    Unsurprisingly, the current approach to the ‘pursuit of happyness’  is in line with the prevalent mentality that was spawned by ‘The Secret’. I have never seen so many delusional people in my life. People that walk around believing that being positive yields positive results. It doesn’t. If it did, it would mean that the proverbial bull would never charge at you if you were a vegetarian. The logic simply does not add up. However, take that same positive attitude and couple it with a focus on opportunities and beneficial outcomes to drive your actions, and suddenly you have a recipe that will allow you to take control of how you respond to situations, rather than how you simply perceive them.

    It may sound like a play on words, but it really isn’t. I engage with people on a daily basis that have this false belief that they can choose to be happy or sad. They can’t. How many times haven’t you tried to be sad or grumpy when someone came along, or something unexpected happened that put an instant and sincere smile on your face? This further cements my argument that happiness is a state that is achieved as a result of our actions in line with our desires or needs, and is most certainly not simply a choice we make. The moment we are compelled, or at least feel compelled to act contrary to our value system or our ethics, that state of happiness eludes us, and instead, is replaced by a state of anxiety and stress.

    For the same reason, a poor man can find contentment in his life, while a man of excessive wealth will find it impossible to have a peaceful night’s sleep.

  • Letting Go

    Most people automatically associate the phrase ‘letting go’ with love and romance. The angsty teenager with the broken heart, or the distraught divorcee, or the one who lost a loved one. It’s so easy to allow the requisite time for mourning to pass before feeling comfortable enough to boldly tell someone to let go and move on. But let go of what? Move on to where?

    Sometimes I find it akin to hanging off the edge of a cliff holding on to a rope in the hope that something will change at some point which will make my hanging from that cliff meaningful or significant. I hold on to that rope for dear life’s sake, more in fear of what will happen if I let go, rather than because I want to hold on. Perhaps my holding on is inspired by the hope that someone may find me worthy enough to want to save me from the fall? I find the same to be true in life outside of romance or human relationships. So many erroneously assume that the act of letting go is what is important, when in fact the need to not want to hold on is really what matters.

    When we focus on letting go, we end up seeking out replacements or alternatives to make up for what we’re supposedly giving up, when in fact we’re not giving up anything, but instead only filling the same gaping hole with a different object. With this realisation I find myself back on that cliff holding on to that rope for dear life, not for a second realising that life hanging off the edge of a cliff is really not much of a life at all.

    Perhaps the cliff analogy is somewhat extreme, but the principles of dealing with reality in the face of inevitability remain the same. We’d much rather hold on to what is familiar than let go in the belief that something better may be acquired. Sometimes we dismiss this insecurity and neediness as pragmatism, or reality, when in fact it’s simply fear. Crippling fear that if we got it wrong once, or if we lost once, we cannot afford to allow ourselves into a situation that would hold the potential of such fear or loss again. And there begins the cycle of self defeat where we assure ourselves of our limitations and pretend to accept it graciously when in fact we’re really just protecting ourselves from the unknown.

    Sometimes we deny this fear and camouflage it with misplaced courage sub-consciously trying to prove that we’re not damaged or dependent on those that betrayed us, and so we pretend to boldly pursue new challenges or opportunities, when in fact all we’re doing is trying to pacify ourselves, and dissuade others from seeing the weakness and the wounds that fester beneath the surface. One scarce talent, it seems, is our ability to accept our true worth before we embrace our limitations. We’re prone to believing that we’re flawed before we believe in our ability to succeed.

    It seems we live in a time when society thrives on the insecurities of others. Our self worth is determined by how much we’re able to fill in those gaps for others, so much so that we are in tune with what others need more than we have any inkling about what we need for ourselves. The trick, I believe, is not to know how to please someone else, but rather how to find someone that is pleased by similar values and virtues as yourself. There is much truth in the saying that love is not two people looking at each other, but rather two people looking in the same direction. It’s just a pity that most people are aimless in their wanderings to find a life worth living.

    Too much emphasis is placed on the contribution of others towards determining the happiness we experience. We’re prone to waiting for life to happen while finding distractions to fill in the gaps of loneliness and purpose, instead of embracing life while being entertained by the distractions. And the same is true for bad habits, social failures, or career bumps. We look at the failure or the setback as a defining experience of who we are, rather than a defining experience of the bad choices we made. Rather than kicking ourselves when we get something wrong, we should remind ourselves that there is much dignity and reward in reflection on the reasons for the bad choices we made, acceptance of the fact that each experience affords us an opportunity to make more informed choices in the future, and the ultimate goal of evolving beyond being a creature of habit, and instead becoming a creature of choice.

    The only thing worth letting go of (it seems) is letting go. Instead, we should embrace, reflect, inform, and persevere. Otherwise we may as well just hold on to that rope for dear life’s sake, hoping that someone will come along at some point and feel sorry enough to want to help us out of our stupor, so that we can start yet another cycle of neediness that ends in pain when the one we need cannot bear the burden of being needed so desperately.