Self Pity: Killer of Dreams
One clear blue day, I decided to stop wasting my time
I don’t know how many of you already know this, is it a revelation just to me or do others struggle as well?
Either way, this is early days, but hopefully the knowledge will carry me out of a situation that’s continued for… um, too long.
The revelation is this. What keeps people demotivated? Self pity. What keeps them depressed? Self pity. Why? Because when you’re sitting there wallowing in your own grief… not a lot gets done. It makes you want to curl up into a ball, not exist or really do anything. This is the biggest waste of all. You fixate the larger part of your attention onto a certain issue, then keep reminding yourself of it. And reminding yourself on it. All I can think about is I have XYZ wrong with me and it is staining every other good experiences I should be having. Guess what? That cycle doesn’t have an end. It will go on and on for as long as you let it. There is only one ending - the one you have to make. You have to step out, and it has to be a conscious choice.
Where it comes to self pity, I am afraid to say I’m guilty as charged. It’s a surprisingly invasive thought, as summarized very well by the Barefoot Doctor:
This is a book my dad has had for somewhere around 10 years. You’d have thought having read all the passages, I would have covered these lessons by now and somehow put them into practice. …Apparently not. I must have seen that page multiple times, sometimes done the exercise for a bit of a giggle, because when you do it properly it really does stand out to you just how lame the whole thing is. We shouldn’t be spending hours of the day being gloomy because of a thing that’s not going right (despite all efforts!) Limit that time to twenty minutes - and then suddenly the whole feeling loses its power and becomes pointless.
On a side note: bereavement. Do NOT attempt to shut out your emotions. When we are hit by devastating events of any kind, the worst thing you can do is try to shut out or deny the feelings that arrive. They will come. You will need to hole up or be a recluse or whatever it takes to recover from the blow. The grieving process has to be done in full, otherwise it will come back to bite when it’s no longer welcome. That’s just life, sorry. The point I’m making above is to do things that help you recover as quickly as possible. The subject might sting when it’s brought up in years to come, but the main thing is not to let the tragedies of years ago still rule every waking moment today. Wallow, maybe a month, maybe a few more, but once it’s done - acceptance. We must move on.
Why the revelation today?
I don’t exactly know. Truth be told, most of my concerns stem from a sense of helplessness. I try, do my utmost to make things work, but then they don’t, and I’m likely to descend into despair for a while. How long that while is, depends on a few factors. If something happens that gets me excited and active again, who’s around for support, or the hardest one, to just snap out of it by yourself. That happened today.
As an example, take driving tests. The year it took me between learning and passing the damn test, I was in a rut. Couldn’t get anywhere out of the village without relying on a dodgy train or parents or someone else giving a lift, which basically turns me into a beggar. Which means no regular work. Which means being broke constantly. Which means I have to beg for food as well and feel like a leech and generally being unhappy as you can’t get yourself many nice things or go out that much. What sort of existence is this, where just because of one unsolved issue you get half a dozen others? In this case, the only thing you can do is keep chugging away and doing retakes until it eventually works and you pass. But in the meantime, imagine how many hours of life were wasted to doom and gloom. If there’s a problem, fair enough, work on it, but when you need a break from it then a much better approach would be to do something creative, go out for walks and exercise… you know, focus on the good things and what you CAN do instead of what you can’t. Or can’t yet. The thing that drains the most of your life force is to keep replaying the negative things, feel down and not do anything as a result.
Since then, loads has changed, but certain things still linger. Helplessness really is a horrible feeling. Like the fact there’s narcissistic people trying to monitor your every action through cameras, digital ID or online interactions. That’s not something you can take down overnight, aside from developing superpowers and responsibly blowing the whole thing to pieces (I don’t discount anything as impossible, but for argument’s sake let’s focus on the practical solutions). In a way, that’s the point of their scheme. Whoever decided to call themselves an elite and create this infrastructure wants to get us down, because they are very well trained in human psychology and therefore prey on our weaknesses. It keeps them in the cushy positions of power. Well, I’m about to dissect this psychology be explaining what happened today, and what I know in general.
That’s a form of helplessness on a grand scale, and there are solutions when we put our minds together. I spend long enough talking about that: today I’m more interested in discussing helplessness on a personal level. It was during a period where I had been beaten enough times to not see the point in trying to pursue my goals overly vigorously and had developed some lazy habits. The passion that had been the driving force my entire life was simply tired and wanting answers to be given on a plate rather than having to go out searching for them. Nonetheless, I stopped by one of my workplaces (empty at the time) to run some tasks. When it came to using the bathroom, admittedly, this used to be one of my top locations for wallowing in self pity. It was somewhere I could very easily lose track of time and indulge in loops of negative thoughts. The funny thing was, when I had gone in there today, I was about to sit down and descend into another bout of despair/ reasoning how to fix things, when it suddenly became very apparent that was exactly what it was. And the immediate thought after was “I can’t be bothered to go through this cycle again.” It was an oddly profound moment, also involving prayer and holding a crystal that happened to be on my necklace that day. Then a vision of a door on a cliff-face, but from the perspective of being inside a cave. It symbolized the way out, that much was clear. And after that - boom - the memory that self-pity really is a killer of dreams. What a strange day, and it isn’t the only one by any means…!
So what is the antidote?
Indeed, if self pity is the killer of motivation, then what is the killer of self pity?
To shine some light on this invasive feeling (as the book very accurately points out), then you’ll be happy to know there are cures.
Gratitude. Not to be underestimated. The cheesy notion of having an attitude of gratitude is based on very real facts, and is indeed, a life-saver. The more you are happy for what you’ve got, the more those things will come into your life. So very similar to the laws of good karma - you get more of what you put out there. Keep your heart open and grateful, and soon you’ll be wondering what you were so sad about.
Responsibility. This means the conscious decision to take the reins back into your hands and guide life how you see fit. If you’ve noticed, pity for oneself is a very childlike quality, which is ok, because it’s perfectly natural for them. When a child falls over and scrapes its knee or doesn’t get the toy it wants, of course it’s going to well up with pitying tears. Unfortunately, much of society hasn’t faced its childhood wounds, so these qualities that shouldn’t really be present in mature adults are still there. Once you start going through this (hard) process of healing, it becomes easier to realize that no one should be expected to come in and save you, so the person that needs to get the shit done is you. That includes keeping on top of your headspace, if the thoughts that come into it are helpful or harmful, and also how you react.
Helping someone else. There’s nothing that tips the balance quite like taking the focus away from your own issues towards helping another get through theirs. Obviously, a drowning man can’t save a drowning man, so make sure your own needs are covered to a reasonable degree so that you don’t then get both of yourselves into trouble. But apart from that, what’s stopping you from lending a helping hand?
Action. As in dealing with the cause as promptly and maturely as you can. Is there a blockage? Ok, try not to stress too much. Try to fill up the waiting time with activities and people that make you happy, exercise, meditation, inner/ outer healing, and anything else that will benefit you overall wellbeing on this road to problem solving. Delay tactics and procrastinating isn’t ideal, so be careful how much time you spend on habits which may put your mind at ease, but aren’t so useful or healthy.