You’re The Problem!

The title is out in the wild, but its crazy how we take look down on ourselves when things go south. What was the last time you shoved your pinky finger of your foot on one of the legs of your couch and summoned all the evil in the world while swearing in pain?

You know its going to happen again with the same finger, same couch, same leg, but the response would be even more amplified and maybe you’d throw a “Why me God why?” at the end of it.

As humans we play the blame game for our problems in two ways.

1. I’m the victim: The world is so unfair, I’m so unlucky, People don’t give a crap about me, Its her/his fault, There’s too much competition in my market, The world sucks and so on and so forth.
2. I’m the problem: Its all me, I could never be a good singer, I never had it in me, Its not worth trying because I’m going to fail anyway so why bother, They’ll laugh at me, I can never get that girl/guy I’m too ugly.

So which one are you?

We are not who we are, we’re the lies we tell ourselves.

I’m still exploring this topic on a personal level, but what I believe is we train our mind into thinking a certain way because we keep telling it things which aren’t true, only because we want it to be true. For ex. The guy who got bullied in school might never have the courage to stand up for something he truly cares about because the serotonin level in his body (the hormone which is also responsible for courage and self valuation other than happiness and mood) has drained like crazy and now he thinks of himself as the weak link between his peers.

Moreover, when we try to blame ourselves and the world for our problems, we seek sympathy and constant validation to keep ourselves going because progress is nowhere to found. That’s the reason alcoholics become more alcoholic, depression progresses drastically and self doubt initiates. Call it the positive feedback loop.

The only way get fix this is first to take charge and responsibility for our actions and whatever happens to us. Once we dust off the dirt and has no one to blame for our problems, we start to really figure out what is causing the issue and what improvements can be made to make things better.

Let this post be another reminder for you to take a deep breath and then a moment to reflect on the issue, accept it as it is, see if you can salvage anything from the experience that will help you improve and move on. Life’s too short to blame yourself or other for what’s happening and too long to learn how to live peacefully.