Posts Tagged ‘self’
Message
Brain: it DOES NOT MATTER that I’m not the best at my subjects; I’m never going to be a savant and hence it IS IRRELEVENT that I’m not top of the class. Why won’t you listen?
Results tomorrow
I’ve been following a strict routine of not thinking about this year’s exams between sitting them and getting the results, which will be tomorrow morning for the latter. It’s been successful – until the past twenty-four hours or so, I’ve managed to not worry about something I can’t affect, and I haven’t been concerned in the way friends have. This seems to indicate that I haven’t had any reason to worry, because I haven’t been entirely blanking the thoughts out of my mind (I wouldn’t be capable of that).
However, last night I had a dream about getting my results. I had the envelope, but – presumably because my brain didn’t know what to expect in the envelope and thus was avoiding showing me – I wasn’t opening it. Instead, I was behind the library desk at school and appeared to be organising envelopes for other people. How odd that my subconcious would have me doing this, and in the library of all places. Also, a friend was nearby, and they had just got a B in Philosophy, the subject I am most concerned about, which I presume was a bad omen for me as the friend is of similar ability and did similar amounts of revision to me, and we were all at a disadvantage because of doing the subject in so few hours. I woke up from this in the dark with a sickly, fearful tummy ache feeling rather scared. This isn’t usual Sean-like behaviour surrounding exam results.
The fact is that at present, whatever else I claim, exam results and the accompanying university that I want to go to are very much my ultimate goal in life at the moment, as they are the first hurdle to pass to get there. I’ve been struggling to feel purposeful with anything not related to this over this summer holiday, e.g. Wikipedia activities. This focus is somewhat ridiculous. It is not true that I have failed entirely if I don’t succeed in these areas – but while I like to tell myself that I fail to convince myself of it. I blab on that I am content to search for meaning through thought and debate and writings like this blog but really, if I don’t get what I want tomorrow or I don’t get into the university I want to go to or both (results tomorrow can be made up over the next year if they are not too bad so the two are not totally dependent on each other), I will feel like I’ve completely failed and it was all a waste of time. I won’t be able to convince myself that what I have gained this year in terms of expanding my mind is more important than the grades. I know this because of what it felt like after I got my GCSE results and got an A in History where I wanted an A*. And that’s really sad.
So I’m going to try and stop thinking now (wow) because it’s unlikely to go very far, and I’m going to wish friends good luck for tomorrow and go and watch some TV, and go to bed. We’ll see what happens with that brown envelope tomorrow.
A commonly misunderstood aspect of my philosophy
Some time ago (like, three or four years) I developed an idea that I didn’t want to have much to do with what I referred to as negative emotions. I still hold this view but I’ve refined the language to the idea that I refuse to allow myself to be crippled by such emotions, I will not allow myself to partake in things that aren’t useful, such as depression, and unrealistic hope. I won’t let it stop me. This sounds very grand, and I’m not saying I always (or ever entirely) succeed. All I’m saying is that I have this as something that I aim for. To me, this seems to make a lot of sense. Why not try and stop such things from causing problems if you can? However, my parents have always told me that this theory is wrong, I’m wrong, and I should stop holding the view. This is mainly because, I think, I’ve often misrepresented the idea by appearing to be attempting to entirely rid myself of emotions. Obviously without physically editing myself that’s not going to happen and in any case I never set out to do this, because as I say I don’t want useless/counter-productive emotions, I’m quite happy with the helpful ones (e.g. realistic hope, determination) and obviously I ‘like’ happiness and the like. I’m not going to question whether or not there is any reason to live if you don’t have emotions, that’s for another post.
And yet still I’m told that the basic view outlined above is incorrect, even when I try to spell it out as simply as possible as I’ve done here. My parents say that all they want is for me to be happy and that my ‘quest’ described above is somehow going to compromise this. I don’t get this. Whatever I may say about aiming for things other than happiness, how does the above compromise this? It’s supposed to leave more space for it by clearing out silly things like depression. If anyone else understands their perspective and would like to explain it to me, I’d very much appreciate it.
The opinions of others
You can either hold yourself up to the unrealistic standards of others, or ignore them and concentrate on being happy with yourself as you are. ~ Jeph Jacques
Self-esteem has become a bit of a buzzword in modern society. Battles rage in education over how much time should be given over to less academic aspects of the experience, and how increasingly lack of self-respect apparently leads to most of society’s problems. I exaggerate here but a line in a book I read recently said something like ‘many teenage girls I know practically live off low self-esteem’ so it’s definitely an issue to be considered. But is it automatically right for everyone to have a high self-esteem? What happens when they’re doing something that actually they really shouldn’t be; should they have a great deal of confidence then? Clearly we would have the rest of society telling them that they should be ashamed of themselves and should stop whatever it is they are doing.
I bring this up because I have noticed over the past half a year or so I have become increasingly concerned with other’s opinions of me when for most of my life I’ve barely been affected by them. On the one hand, this is good: obviously I would rather not be ignorant of what others have to say, and I always (in principle) want to hear the opinions of others on pretty much everything including my own behaviour, in order to work out what I should or shouldn’t be doing based on as much evidence as possible. On the other hand, I fear that I am becoming overly concerned with the opinion held of me by certain other individuals. I’m referring to certain teachers, Internet friends (and superiors in the projects I am involved in), and certain friends I particularly respect the opinion of. This usually involves one of this group making a harsh criticism of me, or misrepresenting my position on something. To the former, I am distressed that I become so distressed over such things. Criticism is a good thing, when fair, and when unjustified it should not concern me – but increasingly it does. To the latter, I perhaps worry too much about correcting the situation when I should instead just correct it once and leave it. I chase things up for far too long and become nagging. Psychologically I’m sure it is me looking for approval from those I respect the opinions of. Simple impulses.
As usual I haven’t really expressed what I wanted to in this post. I need to follow my own mantra of debate over argument and hurt. I need to stop worrying if I’ve hurt or annoyed someone else when I know my intentions have been good and I’ve noted to them those intentions should they become unclear. I need to accept that I’m not perfect, I’m inferior and unoriginal but that this is not something to dwell upon. Because lately as described I’ve become emotionally hung up on this kind of thing and this is not a situation I want to be in. I don’t want to stare at a wall for three quarters of an hour because someone gives me a fair opinion as I did earlier this week. This isn’t me.