This blog carries on from the previous blog: https://jahanc.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/mind-diet-part-8/ which is part of a series of articles on the “mind diet”.
I’ve spoken about the healthy mental “food” we should feed our minds on a daily basis, including the “5 mental fruits a day”, and I’ve also said that we should avoid negative mental “foods” such as stress and anger. There is however another very common feeling that a lot of people have to deal with, and that is self-pity.
Self-pity is so attractive. Let me ask you, why do you think it is so easy to fall into and appealing to many? Why? Think about it for a second. Dig deep in and ask yourself.
Have you found an answer or even answers?
The answer is this.
Self-pity is love.
Let me explain. When we pity others, we feel sorry for them, we extend them sympathy and try to comfort them. We give them value, there are many ways we can explain them but we are essentially giving them a form of love. When we engage in self-pity we are feeling sorry for ourselves. We in fact almost see ourselves in a heroic light, in the same way we would see the poor, suffering, hero of a tragic film. In a very subtle way, sometimes – not always – we are praising ourselves. What many of us would crave for, and naturally so and it is only human, is for a comforting and sympathetic hand to rub us and tell us everything will be alright, and that we don’t deserve this.
Another contributory factor to self-pity is we see how badly treated we are, or how bad things are for us, compared to the fact that we are “good” people and we don’t deserve this. In fact this is why people often break down from bullying sometimes, because the bullying is so unjustified and we don’t deserve any of it, and “why are they picking on me, I’m a good person”.
In the future I will speak more about self-pity as it is very common.
Self-pity is not something the person who wishes to be successful has time for. Self-pity demobilizes us like a clamp demobilizes a car. It makes us wallow in feeling sorry for ourselves, makes us waste our time and is giving ourselves comfort and reassurance instead of others doing it for us. Also very importantly, self-pity will only attract more of what we are upset with. If we are upset with being treated badly and life being so unfair. Guess what?
Yes, you’ve guessed it, you will only attract more of that.
So if you wish to be successful in whatever field it is, be it business, personal success, relations or anything don’t feel sorry for yourself.
Instead of self-pity you should engage in:
Self-criticism: A true friend points out your flaws so that you get better, huge companies spend millions of dollars on research and development and employ engineers to carry out tests to find faults with their products so that it will eventually be perfect. Constantly be critical of yourself, and I mean constructive criticism coupled with appreciation of your positive side (this is the opposite of beating yourself and hating yourself), so that you can be the best that you can.
Self-reliance: Do not rely on others, do not expect much from others as a successful business mentor I know told me. Believe in yourself and do not be disappointed if people do not deliver. There is an old saying which is very true.
“If you laugh the whole world laughs with you, if you cry, you cry alone.”
People will be there in numbers when you are successful and are humourous, but not many, besides your few, close, true friends will be there when you are a “loser”, someone who is a liability rather than an asset.
So to summarize, Self-pity is a poison which many of us feed ourselves with, some of it stems from a natural desire to be valued and comforted, but not only does it immobilize you, making you waste your time, it can be quite selfish as there are always people far worse off than you.
Instead, go out be pro-active, be organized and see how you can improve things. Think of yourself, of your family and of others and how far more useful you will be as a successful, wealthy person who can help them, then someone by themselves feeling sorry for yourself. This is not to trivialize the legitimate hurt that many do feel, especially if it is about something major. However the world does not stand still. The world is a beautiful place, with so much excitement, joy, adventure, new friends, new experiences out there. Go out in the world and you will be successful. Go and be a winner, and do not feel sorry for yourself. I will cover this topic more in future articles.
– Jahan Choudhry
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