Category: Self

The folly of impressing others

Supermarket cool

1_dh1MZwNdUYAvXa7xyTu-wwPhoto by Aiman Zenn on Unsplash

In Western society, a great deal of concern goes into our appearance. The inescapable advertisements that bombard our senses (supposedly up to 5000 a day) are filled with the kinds of celebrities that marketers have decided we want to be like. They’re promoting the idea that if we buy a cologne, we could be as chiseled and perfect as Mr. Depp. The skincare product that costs a day’s salary will almost certainly make you as desirable as the flawless Cheryl Cole.

It’s absurd, of course. The fragrant liquids that we slather onto our faces will not remove the additional chin that we’ve spent years acquiring. We’re being sold an unattainable reality, completely removed from the truth, and it makes us feel like we’re not good enough. Standards of beauty are set by those who want to sell us something, not by people who have our mental health in mind. They’re giving us what we want, and not what we need.

How do we prevent this from affecting our self-esteem, when it’s so ubiquitous? The answer may lie in a 2000-year old philosophy called Stoicism.

The Stoics believed that you shouldn’t worry about anything outside of your control. This includes how people feel about the way you look. While it’s important to fit in (you can’t go around dressed like a chicken and not expect some roadblocks), it’s utterly meaningless to try to impress, because you can’t control people’s reactions to you. If somebody is rude enough to point out that your nose looks like a pickle that has been rejected by the local supermarket, it isn’t the insult that has caused hurt, it’s your judgment of it. Such a comment is merely the words of an idiot to a Stoic, because they have decided to place value only in what they can control: their reaction. It’s reminiscent of Shakespeare’s Hamlet:

“Nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so” – Shakespeare

Being able to suspend your judgment in such situations seems superhuman. Even Marcus Aurelius, once Emperor of Rome, and one of the most famous Stoics, struggled every day to adhere to his own philosophy. His Meditations is an insightful and compelling personal diary about his life as a Stoic, and the difficulties he faced.

The idea seems based on solid ground though, despite its demanding nature. Consider how many of your behaviours are influenced by wanting to impress others, and what your life could be like if it were no longer a factor? You could look and act however you wanted (to a certain degree), provided it wasn’t causing others harm. You’d have a more peaceful, less anxious mind. There’d be a great deal more honesty about you. The people who you choose to spend time with would value you for the person that you want to be, not who society thoughtlessly applauds.

The sentiment is echoed by countless others. Michel de Montaigne, a refreshingly forthright French Renaissance philosopher, encourages us to be more like the animals: totally comfortable and ignorant of ourselves, and how we appear to others. Further East, Confucius believed that:

“What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.” – Confucius

So the next time you find yourself engaged in something that is purely to impress, take a moment to realise your mistake, and remember to let go of that which you can’t control.

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Addiction

A friend of mine has severe depression, a debilitating drug-addiction, and a gambling problem of epic proportions. Over the last two years, he’s alienated almost every one of his family and friends, disfigured his nose by snorting obscene amounts of cocaine, and lost over £100,000 (profit from the sale of his house). At the moment, he lives with his parents, both of who have come to detest him, but can’t stand the thought of him living on the streets.

His downward spiral has been happening for a long time. He loved drugs from a young age; always indulged in any kind of escapism, anything that numbed the pain of existence. Challenging/worthwhile things were ignored in favour of something easier. He never learned to persevere. He only ever headed in a single direction – the easiest one. He never learned that a great deal of happiness is to be found in doing what’s difficult.

I can’t imagine what it feels like to be in that kind of situation; the helplessness of it all. An awful sense of pity and frustration washes over me whenever I think about him. Every person who cares about him knows what he needs to do: rehab, and ongoing therapy. Yet he refuses. He continues to live a life that simply isn’t worth it, because it’s easier.

An addict can’t be forced to seek treatment. We’ve tried every persuasion technique possible. We’ve been patient and compassionate; furious and coercive. Nothing gets through. The affect that he’s had on his family has been heartbreaking to witness.

By allowing him to live in their home, his parents are keeping the situation stagnant. He has no responsibility to feed and shelter himself. He often sleeps all day, because he can. They’ve paid off his drug debts (£15k+) multiple times, and every single time that they do, they’re helping to kill their own son.

So a battle is being fought on two fronts: convincing his parents to stop funding my friend’s drug habit, and convincing him friend to get professional help. They seem like hopeless tasks, and I’m now starting to wonder whether this is something that I need to walk away from, for the sake of my own mental health. But doing so feels like giving up on someone that I love.

Are you suffering from any of these problems, or know somebody who is? You might be interested in the below.

Suicide prevention: https://www.lifeline.org.au/
Alcohol/drugs: https://adf.org.au/help-support/
Addiction: https://au.reachout.com/tough-times/addiction

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Perseverance

Man climbing wall

1_9oXP0Q6up4Qn3VQ_9WcDoQPhoto by David Boca on Unsplash

Procrastination is one of our worst enemies. If it were a person, it would be best friends with Donald Trump, cancer and ISIS. It would eat nothing but brussel sprouts, and regularly drown kittens. Why do we entertain such a rogue so often?

If we didn’t procrastinate as much, we’d get more shit done. We’d feel more confident in our ability. Others would admire us more. We’d know more stuff. The list of positives goes on, and yet we continue to put off what’s difficult, despite the fact that we’re quite clearly sabotaging our own happiness.

Procrastination has an arch-enemy; a challenger which aims to send it back to the fiery pit of hell, where it belongs. It’s called perseverance.

Persevering during times of struggle is very difficult to do. We instinctively want to run away; to get away from the discomfort. It’s helpful to remind ourselves why we should persevere, and the following should assist with that.

Helpful reminders on why you should cultivate perseverance

  • Remember that at times, you will fail. You’ll embarrass yourself. These are risks that come with doing anything worthwhile.
  • The brave aren’t fearless, they just continue despite their fear.
  • Understand that perseverance is the right quality to move you forward in life.
  • “I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost anything, even nature.” – John D. Rockefeller.
  • Being comfortable is overrated. Nothing worthwhile is achieved through being comfortable.
  • “If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”-Martin Luther King.
  • “A river cuts through rock not because of its power, but because of its persistence.” – Jim Watkins.
  • Realise that if you stop the difficult task, you’ll never know the outcome. You could be missing out on a great deal of satisfaction.
  • Anything worthwhile takes time, and perseverance.
  • Struggle and patience are gateways to victory.
  • “Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.” – Julie Andrews.
  • “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” – Robert Collier.

In addition to the above, we might want to consider the following methods as ways to encourage perseverance:

Methods for cultivating perseverance

  • Do what scares you. Do what makes you uncomfortable.
  • Start the task. Don’t hesitate.
  • See the task through to the end.
  • Once the task is over, you’ll realise that it wasn’t as bad as the stories you were telling yourself about it.
  • Return to the task. Examine your uncomfortableness closely. Embrace and accept it.
  • Look back on what you’ve achieved by not running away.
  • Do the thing, don’t do the other thing that you’re using as an escape.
  • Don’t let your mind run wild with imagined failures; excite it with anticipated victories.
  • Examine the uncomfortableness closely. How does it feel in your body? How does it feel in your mind? How does it make you act?
  • Make what makes you uncomfortable a habit. It’ll become easier with practice.
  • Meditate. It’ll help you become more aware of your self-talk. It’ll also help you focus.
  • Don’t rush, it’s much more enjoyable and less stressful taking your time (even on an uncomfortable task).
  • Consider the rewards of achieving the task.
  • No matter how daunting the task is, just take the first step, and keep on putting one foot in front of the other.

As long as we’re being challenged, we’re always going to want to procrastinate. But the more we practice perseverance, the more likely we’ll be to just get the fuck on with it. And every time that happens, we’ll feel a bit better about ourselves.

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Chasing happiness

Kids running in field

1_VWcdxFLzSx2VvoEkMevAdQPhoto by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Most of us spend our lives fruitlessly chasing happiness, to our everlasting detriment.

It seems the natural thing to do; why on earth would we seek pain? Wouldn’t that make us debased masochists, delightfully sweating in anticipation of a jolly good bit of suffering?

Only pursuing positive experiences, it turns out, is a foolish endeavour. We’re robbing our lives of depth, because most things worth doing involve some degree of pain. It’s tempting to spend our days scrolling through social media like zombie consumers, safely protected from the possibility of a negative emotion emerging in our heads. But nothing is achieved by doing so; no sense of fulfilment will ever arise.

Alain De Botton says it better than anyone else:

The most fulfilling human projects appear inseparable from a degree of torment, the sources of our greatest joys lying awkwardly close to those of our greatest pains…

Why? Because no one is able to produce a great work of art without experience, nor achieve a worldly position immediately, nor be a great lover at the first attempt; and in the interval between initial failure and subsequent success, in the gap between who we wish one day to be and who we are at present, must come pain, anxiety, envy and humiliation. We suffer because we cannot spontaneously master the ingredients of fulfilment.

Nietzsche was striving to correct the belief that fulfilment must come easily or not at all, a belief ruinous in its effects, for it leads us to withdraw prematurely from challenges that might have been overcome if only we had been prepared for the savagery legitimately demanded by almost everything valuable.

– Alain De Botton

We must have the grit and fortitude to battle through pain if we want to achieve anything worthwhile. Sadness is not a disorder to be cured, it’s the path to a more fulfilling life.

The daily struggles that we have with our negative emotions only serve to exacerbate the very problem that we’re trying to solve. Pushing against unfavourable emotion, rather than accepting it, simply makes us feel worse. It’s as though we’re desperate to split ourselves in two: remove the undesirable, sickly sides of ourselves with a rusty blade. Trying to cut it away just poisons us.

It isn’t possible to be half-human. We must accept the parts of ourselves that we loathe; stop resisting the so-called negative aspects of our being. We cannot remove the bad. It’s useless to even try. We’ll live with embarrassment, shame, fear, unwanted desire, sickness, anxiety and every other despicable thought or feeling that we can imagine. The great George Orwell once said:

“Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or very foolish imagine otherwise.”

– George Orwell

What makes us so arrogant to think that we can dispel unhappiness from our lives? This misguided quest of attempting to make every single moment the happiest it can possibly be only results in inevitable disappointment; a bad taste in our mouths that we’ve been trying to wash out since adolescence. We’re destined for a rollercoaster of emotions:

“Fate guides the willing, drags the unwilling.”

– Seneca

We can battle fate and exacerbate the pain, or instead make the choice to spend our lives with an attitude of acceptance. Only by embracing the latter can we truly be happier.

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Being liked

Girls hiding eyes

1_ZpKgYV8jJlH5nQVWjIGZAQ.jpegPhoto by Sam Manns on Unsplash

Deep down, most of us desperately want to be liked by others.

Back when our arms were much longer and our bodies covered in luscious brown fur, fitting in with our social group meant survival. An outcast chimp is almost certainly a dead one; being accepted in a group was therefore of the utmost importance.

These days, things are a little different. Instead of swinging among the trees, we seek out adverts for parties in which we might swing with another man’s wife. Our hair-covered bodies have become smoother, save a few select spots. Sunday afternoons spent picking fleas from our cousin’s matted cranium have been replaced by Netflix.

One thing that hasn’t changed is our desire to fit in. It pervades every interaction that we have with others; an underlying motivation that we can’t seem to escape. So we often hold back what we really want to say, from fear of being ridiculed; dreading the prospect of sitting entirely alone in the lunch room, with raucous friendship groups all around us, their members incapable of even glancing in our direction. We absolutely need to fit in.

Our social dependency deters us from being our genuine selves, and the consequences are dire. Our very soul seems to push against a false action or word. It makes us feel somehow wrong, as though we’re committing some illicit action which must be hidden at all costs, most of all from ourselves. We want to run away from the situation.

In contrast, being confidently genuine feels like floating on air. It’s effortless. There’s little deliberation in our minds; less second-guessing or worry of offending. The shackles of deceit are cast away, and the feeling of freedom is rapturous.

For every social interaction, we have to choose between the need to belong, and the need to be genuine. Nietzsche suggested being 100% genuine:

“It is a new step towards independence, once a man dares to express opinions that bring disgrace on him if he entertains them; then even his friends and acquaintances begin to grow anxious. The man of talent must pass through this fire, too; afterwards he is much more his own person.”

– Nietzsche

This gung-ho approach seems unnecessary, it doesn’t always have to be one or the other. Sometimes, we must be diplomatic rather than honest. It’s necessary in order to survive in today’s world. But for the most part, we should be genuine. We’ll probably cause offence and upset, but we’ll also gain like-minded friends; people who we’re much more at ease with; our kinds of people. These friends make life worth living, they provide buoyancy against the troubles of the world. And the only way to find them is by being our genuine selves.

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