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Published: March 7, 2024, 4 p.m.

\u201cYou\u2019re stupid, you\u2019re fat, you\u2019re ugly, and nobody likes you.\u201d \u2014 a typical, self-denigrating attitude

To Be Adequate

We have a prejudice that those who cannot perform at the level we expect are mentally challenged and, likewise, those who excel in performance have greater mental power. None of this are true. Performance is not a reflection of your mental ability.

Many of us go further. We equate performance with value, so that those who perform better are worth more. Value is not as easy to measure as performance, so we rarely assert our value or decry our lack, but it\u2019s there in our hearts. Personal value is an issue of self worth.

People who feel they are deficient often work to exceed expectations in order to prove they are excellent or at least adequate. That is, we have many people working to redeem themselves from an accusation of inferiority. These people usually don\u2019t proclaim their guilt, but they\u2019re usually the people most convinced of it.

Why are we so often our own accusers? Is this healthy, and can our efforts to redeem ourselves succeed (Hermann, 2002)? Perhaps we are like inveterate alcoholics always in a state of weakness. According to the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. The only escape is abstinence.

Western culture is a culture of scarcity. The pressure to demonstrate one\u2019s adequacy pervades almost everything, everywhere, and affects almost everyone. The only ones who seem to be immune are those who either already have proved themselves or who don\u2019t care. But of those who don\u2019t care, it\u2019s rare to find people who never questioned their value, yet there are such people.\xa0

The people who do not feel the need to prove themselves form a special group. These are people who are not or never were infected with a sense of inadequacy, inferiority, or guilt. These people are free from the shadow of self-doubt. We\u2019d like to know how this is accomplished. Can we really prove ourselves, and to whom should we appeal?

To Be Inadequate

People burdened with self-doubt see those without self-doubt as redeemed. Many people feel they can redeem themselves through work hard or, pathologically, through suffering. These people might become athletes, entrepreneurs, or over-achievers but, if the reward is not forthcoming, they may turn to more hedonistic coping strategies.\xa0

It is fair to ask if people understand self-doubt: theirs or anyone else\u2019s. Why do they need to prove themselves, and can they?

\u201cSelf-handicapping is a strategy in which people who are uncertain about their likelihood of success, paradoxically, will sabotage their own performance.\u201d\u2014Robert M. Arkin, psychologist (Arkin, 2001)

When I was young, I felt inadequate. Looking back, I felt alone, but what that meant was not clear to me at the time. In order to feel alone one has to have something to compare it to, otherwise it\u2019s just the normal state of things. It would be more accurate to say that I felt deprived. Later I felt inadequate.

Inadequacy is learned. First, you have to know what you need, and then you have to recognize you cannot get it. That alone is not enough, you have to feel it\u2019s your fault. Once you\u2019ve achieved that, then you can feel inadequate.

Learning how you came to feel inadequate would be valuable. It\u2019s a maze that takes years to get stuck in; years of being rewarded for making the wrong decisions. If we questioned ourselves more, we might be less liable to develop self-injurious ideas and emotional weaknesses.\xa0

This is why learning confidence in childhood is important as it puts you in a better position to recognize a toxic environment. This is why poor education, which is by far most of what passes as education, is destructive to individuals and society. People who don\u2019t learn to love themselves early likely never will.

Self-inadequacy is a spectrum disorder. A few people are overly full of themselves and a few are utterly empty. The rest of us lie somewhere on the spectrum. A deprived childhood is only partly to blame; a lot of the blame lies with the culture and how we\u2019re lured into believing what we\u2019re told.

Christianity etc.

I find Christianity\u2019s concept of original sin to be abhorrent. It\u2019s the idea that you\u2019re guilty of being fundamentally spiritually flawed in ways that you can\u2019t know and there\u2019s nothing you can do about it. The issue is not a hot topic for most people, and it\u2019s rarely discussed, yet I think it has a pernicious effect.

The idea that you\u2019re redeemable only by dint of authority is not part of Christ\u2019s teaching (Spencer, 2021). I don\u2019t blame the religion\u2019s founders, I blame our culture for degrading people, a trend that has continued to evolve over time. Similar ideas are latent in secular systems that encourage some people to feel inherently better than others.

From the idea of being inherently cursed or blessed comes a plethora of sicknesses. Once these ideas are inserted into the culture, religion is no longer needed to sustain them. Similar to the way a virus can insert its DNA into the host, impaired personal worth inserts itself into the culture.\xa0

We can trace this back to religion because it\u2019s stated in the bible. Among Calvinists we find people self-declared as in need of absolution. My family was not religious and our background was Jewish. Judaism also carries the low self-esteem virus which tends to manifest as elitism.

We can also trace it back to public school where, as children we were manipulated into reciting useless information to sadistic agents. Anyone who feels entitled to tell children how to think and act is sadistic. Teachers demonstrate self-worth by debasing others, and they do this to make themselves feel worthy. I learned of that personality trait from my overachieving father, who did that in his weaker moments.

Elitism is a strategy for coping with inadequacy. For those of us lacking in self-love, being normal is being inferior. We search for a way to show we\u2019re special, but demonstration is never enough to overcome a lack of self-faith.\xa0

Doubting what you feel is a very old feature of Western culture. This lack of insight kept Europe in the Dark Ages for one thousand years. It\u2019s interesting to return to history and learn of the lack of self-confidence that supported blind faith in the earth-centered conception of the universe (Trusted, 1991).

Self-Hatred versus Self-Love

My ex is well-liked in her fundamentalist congregation. Like everyone, she has some odd behaviors you wouldn\u2019t know without a detailed history. She also hates herself. Childhood abuse and religious perversion lie at the root. Low self-esteem has brought her back to the same mindset that fostered the abuse. Becoming ensnared in a cycle of abuse is sometimes referred to as Stockholm Syndrome, the belief that only your accuser can redeem you.

I was told of an ultra-marathon runner who will not be satisfied until they win in the major races. Ultra-marathons are foot races of typically 100 miles. Being a regional champion is not enough. In truth, being a national champion will never be enough. Nothing will ever be enough. In the words of this person\u2019s counselor, their predominant character trait is self-hatred. In particular, they loathe their body, so it\u2019s from their body they must exorcize their deficiency.

Self-hatred is not a topic of casual conversation and it\u2019s not something people are even curious about. Most of us feel somewhat guilty of or vulnerable to it, so we don\u2019t talk about it. It\u2019s easy to speculate where self-loathing comes from, and it\u2019s never easy to share.

My three books on learning, beginning with The Learning Project (Stoller 2019), are ostensibly about self-love. But self-love is not so much a thing as a process. You can\u2019t isolate or extract it, but you can see it in the character of people who have it. It is the source of creativity, value, and self-acceptance.

I find myself attracted to people who have self-worth as well as people who don\u2019t. There is a similarity in these polar opposites: the ones who have it and the ones who need it. People who are alike weakly attract like. Two people who value themselves easily work together.\xa0

Two needy people can strongly attract one another because they may offer just what the other needs, and nothing satisfies more than having your needs met. Co-dependent relationships are created by insecure people who are too satisfied to change and too fragile to grow. This might have described my parents.

Opposites also attract, but not in the same way for each. If you lack self-worth, it\u2019s tempting to think those who have it can give it to you. If you have self-worth, then you know you can show it to those who don\u2019t have it. You also recognize that those who don\u2019t know it, can\u2019t see it and won\u2019t appreciate it.

Experience has taught me that you can sense a person\u2019s self-esteem without knowing them. You see self-worth in the traits of being forthright, direct, open, and acting with integrity. Self-worth leads to self-faith, and a person you can trust.\xa0 It\u2019s a subtle perception to which dogs are better attuned than people. They can smell it.

When I was young, I lacked this sense. I was told explicitly by school teachers and implicitly by my weak parents that I didn\u2019t have value and I would have to find it. I listened to many people who were consumed by this toxic attitude before I understood the creative path shown to me by a few people who loved themselves.

False Approval

Physical beauty and strength are widely celebrated and insubstantial measures of meaning. Like all false endorsements, these are \u201cbait and switch\u201d enticements. The lure is affirmation for someone who feels deficient; the switch lies in both the insubstantial endorsement and the exploitation that comes with it.

Women have been lured into seeking affirmation of beauty by being trained to think they\u2019re ugly and inferior. Men have been lured into seeking affirmation of strength by being trained to think they\u2019re weak and insignificant (Caulfield, 2015).\xa0

Social affirmations of a person\u2019s beauty or strength are really affirmations of ugliness and weakness. Because these forms of approval are based on false appearances, a person\u2019s belief in their true appearance is degraded, and they make us less likely to reveal our true selves.

Seeking affirmation of beauty or strength is seeking approval for high performance. The difference resides in the degree you learn to accept your true self. If you depend on being seen as beautiful or strong, then a more authentic self-value without that affirmation is disparaged. Your false self is endorsed, but you can never feel truly invested in it. If you are not satisfied with your best performance you\u2019re fucked. Until you are satisfied with yourself, you will never be satisfied with anyone.

"It is a psychological game, it really is... You gotta know what to say, and when not to say it. In the room, when you\u2019re working with them\u2026 on the mat right here\u2026 you've got a kid that comes off the mat and he's destroyed. If you go over there and pat him on the back that frigin\u2019 sucks, man. You make him feel worse.\u201d\u2014Lou Giani, wrestling coach (Stoller 2019b).

You find self-worth when you discover what\u2019s deeply meaningful. It doesn\u2019t need to be something others support and you don\u2019t need the approval of others. In fact, being judged as successful by others is a trap because it\u2019s not you that is endorsed, but other people\u2019s needs.

Money and Media

Most of us feel money is deeply meaningful. We disparage the superficiality of money, but we\u2019re addicted to it. This is similar to our addictions to social approval for beauty, strength, and performance. Consider your hesitance to reveal the amount of your salary or savings, and reflect on what this means in terms of self-value and how you value others.

In each case, what we crave is either given to us by others who don\u2019t care about us, or taken by us from others from whom we don\u2019t care about. This is the defining character of social media. Many complain about it.

Rejecting the attraction of social media is less an affirmation of higher values, and more a reliance on them. It\u2019s the irritation of being held to yet another false standard, and a preference to return to the false standards that feel more substantial. People who reject social media do not recognize real value, they just want endorsements that are under their control.

Where social media is a trend to increasingly scarce false approval, those feeling deprived want more available false approval. Speaking as a person who has found a modicum of self-approval and self-love, I couldn\u2019t give a s**t about my profile on social media, aside from whether or not it supports my business.

All that I\u2019ve said has focused on what\u2019s false, but no amount of rejection is satisfying. To find self-love you need to engage with what\u2019s fortifying. I\u2019ll address that next week.

References

Arkin, R. M. (2001 Fall). Self-doubt, handicaps, and hard work. Eye on Psi Chi 6 (1). https://doi.org/1092-0803.Eye6.1.18

Caulfield, T (2015, May). The pseudoscience of beauty products, The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/05/the-pseudoscience-of-beauty-products/392201/

Hermann, A. D., Leonardelli, G. J., & Arkin, R. M. (2002 Mar). Self-Doubt and Self-Esteem: A Threat from within. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28(3), 395-408. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234168335_Self-Doubt_and_Self-Esteem_A_Threat_from_within

Spencer, D.(2021 Summer). Does St. Paul Believe in Original Sin? Yeah, but so What? Journal of Analytic Theology 9. https://doi.org/10.12978/jat.2021-9.030011181517

Stoller, L. (2019). The learning project: Rites of passage. Mind Strength Balance. https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com/learn/index.htm

Stoller, L. (2019b). Lou Giani: wrestling coach, from The learning project: Rites of passage. Mind Strength Balance.\xa0https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com/learn/interviews/lougiani_text.htm

Trusted, J. (1991). Physics and metaphysics: Theories of space and time. Routledge.

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