It's a very old idea that one should "find yourself."
"Know who you really are."
"Get in touch with yourself."
Truly knowing who one is, what kind of person one is, is not an easy thing. It requires a great deal of thought and introspection, of honest, unemotional analysis into actions and the motivations behind them and the emotions behind those.
And it requires time -- lots of time -- for all this work to be done.
Thanks to my year-off from work (which has expensively grown into almost two years now) I've had the time, and the combination of my personality and years of therapy I've had the ability and inclination to do this kind of thinking. One of the few good things to result from twenty months of unproductivity and idleness is that I now have really good understanding of what kind of man I am. I've dug into how I instinctively behave in given situations AND why I behave that way AND what in my history taught me to behave that way.
But this has presented me with another problem: What do I do if I get to know myself and find I don't like me very much?
Okay, "like" is not the right word. "Respect" is better. I don't respect myself very much. I believe we all carry in our heads an informal list of the behaviours that earn our respect, subconsciously comparing other's behaviour to what's on our list, deciding based on the comparison whether to respect someone we meet or not.
But if I compare myself to what's on my list, I can't respect myself.
I respect people who work hard, but I'm terribly lazy. I respect people who discipline themselves, but I'm very undisciplined. I respect active, decisive people, but I'm so afraid of taking chances that I don't do much at all. I respect people who temper their emotions with reason and stay in control, but I tend to react to stressful situations like a tempermental spoiled child. I respect truthful people who behave honourably, but I'm often dishonest, telling lies to get myself out of trouble or to make myself seem more important.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not completely down on myself. Part of being honest about one's self is seeing both the good and the bad, and I do see my good points too. I just hope that it's still possible to work on my bad points to change or eliminate them, to change some really fundamental things about myself to become someone I can truly respect. Is it too late? Is it like someone once told me, that if you haven't started doing something by a certain age then you never will? Old dogs and all that?
I don't want to believe that. I have to hope that I can still change the things that trouble me the most, that I can get past the Stage 3 block that stalls most people. Like Henry says in THE LION IN WINTER, "You and I are alive. For all I know that's what hope looks like."
5 comments:
mike
it's never too late to start anything. we are always a work in progress. i was a different person at 25 than i was at 15 and different at 35 than at 25.
you do respect yourself. otherwise, you wouldn't engage in self evaluation in an attempt to improve yourself.
you've identified certain traits about yourself that you would like to change and the issue is how to implement the changes.
everyone likes to stay in their comfort zone. i think you react as you describe in certain situations because that's the most comfortable response. being lazy, undisciplined, indecisive, tempermental or dishonest is easy. it's like the person who is on a diet but finds himself in the cookie aisle at the store with a bag of oreos in his hand. it's easier to put the bag in the shopping cart than it is to put the oreos back on the shelf even though that is what he wants to do.
those traits that you don't like .. try to change your behavior a little at a time. if you're faced with a choice between working hard or being lazy, choose working hard. then reward yourself with compliments after completing the task.
changing ingrained behavior is difficult and will take time. sometimes you'll succeed; other times you'll fail. you'll put yourself in situations that are so uncomfortable that you will want to barf. but it's the only way to achieve the changes you seek.
you can do this.
Thanks for leaving such a lengthy and thoughtful comment. It's nice to be taken seriously.
And, like I said, I'm not completely down on myself, just trying to be honest. Maybe I should list what I see as my good points as well.
i'm sure you have many good points and are a wonderful person. your desire to make yourself an even better person is admirable. to publicly air your self-perceived negative traits is brave.
the process of change will be an internal private struggle between your existing habits and your desire to change. easy vs tough.
you'll know you've made progress when the tough becomes less tough.
Thanks for the encouragement and the compliments. This isn't that brave though, because I'm not making anything very public. After all, you and I are the only ones who come here. ;D
i know. it's kinda like our secret clubhouse.
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