Worthy Inside

I’m not a big fan of watching movies.

It’s not that I hate them. I just watch movies less than the average individual for reasons that are still unknown.

Recently, I have sat down to watch Spider-man Homecoming. It was just for entertainment. I was not expecting to find something deep in it.

But it turned out that I was wrong. Inside the movie lies one of the secrets of self-respect and the antidote to neediness.

Have you ever been to a war before?

Most people reading this probably have not.

So let me ask you another question.

Have you ever watched a movie about wars?

You know, where there are soldiers in the field and a lot of dead bodies and body’s parts.

1. Not Asking For Help

When it comes to self-development, there is a lot to be said about the “lone wolf” mentality. Or the “being independent” attitude.

But it all comes down to this: you are strong and you can do it on your own. You don’t need anybody’s help (even, or especially, those who care about you). In fact, needing someone’s help means that you are weak.

And that is garbage. This is a claim that I can support, in fact.

Have you ever looked into the mirror, saw a strange face, and whispered to yourself, “I feel nothing”?

It was like you weren’t happy or sad.

You weren’t depressed or excited, and sure you weren’t miserable or satisfied. You just felt nothing.

You look at all the people who complain about their emotions and how miserable they are. And you wonder what’s wrong with those people.

And you look at those who describe their emotions as euphoric feelings and you have no clue how that feels like.

Let’s first state the fact that all of us have our own emotional problems. That is, all of us are little crazy to some extent.

None of us is an exception.

Some suffer more than others. Some manage to cope with their problems in a good way.

The goal is not to totally eliminate our emotional problems; the goal is to handle them in a healthier way.

That said, I’ve seen that there are unhealthy patterns which will make you crazier and more neurotic. Patterns that are unhealthy for your emotional health.

Affirmations suck!

You can’t get your mind to believe in something without offering it some evidence first.

I’m not even going to go into the fact that affirmations can be bad for you. In terms of developing a healthy self-esteem, affirmations can do more harm than good.

Your mind a) already has a specific belief about who you are. b) has evidence (real or imaginary) to support this.

And the process of challenging those evidence-based-beliefs includes more than repeating positive beliefs and words.

Your mind will hardly believe in positive affirmations because a) it already has opposing, conflicting beliefs. b) it has nothing to prove it. It will consider them as lies and, as a result, it will make you feel worse about yourself.

Not only are you a piece of shit. You are a liar, too.

To induce real change, you need actions. Real actions that can be considered as evidence to support the healthy beliefs you want to have about yourself. 

It is a scary idea. Ugly, even.

And by “it”, I mean the painful, dreadful idea that you are probably not good enough. And I believe that your imagination is, ironically, good enough at finding other adjectives than “good” to fill in. Adjectives like, “smart, tall, pretty, rich …etc.”

But I bet you have thought of it before, pondered on it, and almost believed it one night when you were feeling very vulnerable and weak.

This is a guest post by Timon. He writes about social skills and confidence. Check his bio under the article.

You go to the coffee shop, grab your coffee from the counter and are about to take a seat.

What’s that? Hey, that girl is reading Harry Potter. Awesome, you love those books!

Let’s have a chat with her.

Or,.. no,.. she will probably not like that. She is reading, right? She won’t like you anyway.

Never mind. You’ll just take your coffee and go.

Would be cool if you could have talked though, but she won’t like you anyway.

Why doesn’t anybody like you

In the 19 century, a few experiments were aimed at observing frogs’ reactions to slowly heated water.

They found that frogs tend to not jump out of the pan if the water was heated slowly but steady.

The frogs will get used to the water’s temperature. As soon as they do, the temperature increases slightly (and almost in a subtle way). When it increases, they get used to the new temperature…

…Until the water reaches the boiling point. That’s when the shit breaks loose!