Yes, You Need Other People

This is something that I didn't grasp for a long time.

           These past few years, as I've worked through and come to some sort of decorum with issues related to low self-love and self-worth,  I've accepted that surviving and thriving in this world requires having others in my life. The love of other people, the support of other people, the sense of belonging to other people in a variety of capacities: these are all essential to our well being as humans.

          

           Despite having confidants, friends and family to support me many times I failed to understand that it was ok to rely on others when there were hard times that overwhelmed me.

So much of what I read, what I learned from media and the individualistic culture that dominates our world was that you could never rely on others. You always had to stand alone. You always had to be able to cope with what life gave you. You could never share dark times with others or expect others to help you. Perhaps the message I heard the most though was you had to be enough for you. Your own sense of self worth was what would carry you through.

These days, I tend to see this as misguided if not flat out wrong. None of us by ourselves are enough to sustain us through life. I mean that materially and emotionally.

Humans are highly social creatures. We are not solitary creatures like tigers and sharks. As Yuval Harari writes in Sapiens:

'A colt can trot, shortly after birth; a kitten leaves its mother to forage on its own when it is just a few weeks old. Human babies are helpless, dependent for many years on their elders for sustenance, protection and education.'

The term 'sink or swim' is applied to people striking out on their own to make it in life. Yet if our species was really geared towards that kind of existence, we would give our children up to nature like sharks do. We wouldn't bothered to raise our kids at all we'd leave them to forage on their own and they would thrive.

As we all know though, leave a human newborn alone by itself in the wild and it's almost certain to die.

We need our parents and are families to look after us. Sometimes that sustenance protection and education from our caregivers can go (to one extent to another) our whole lives.

But it's not just our parents or family we're dependent on. Most of you reading this have a smart phone, a device you probably had no part in manufacturing. You also didn't create it nor did you come with the idea for it the first place.

At a more basic level most of you reading this rely on a system of food distribution network to keep yourselves fed. You rely on electricity companies to keep your home powered and on government pipes to get clean water.

Sure there are some survivalists and hermits that go the extra step of withdrawing into the wilderness. But if humans beings were wired for that kind of existence there wouldn't be over seven billion of us and we wouldn't be living in towns or cities. In fact we probably wouldn't have the kinds of technology and innovations that allow us to live and thrive.

Humanity's strength has always been our capacity to cooperate with one another. We have built societies where we can work together and come up with solutions that are for the common good of our communities. Any time we've thrived its been because we were lifting others up.

It's ironic that we live in an age where so many (especially in the first world) are dependent on others materially yet expect our emotional and psychological needs to be met entirely by ourselves.

Again if that was the case we wouldn't socialize or bond nearly as much as we do. 

We wouldn't even need to confide in any friend or loved one about personal doubts and insecurities because...those insecurities just wouldn't be there.

 We wouldn't have the rich body of art and literature that comes from the disappointments, heartaches and tragedies that come when we fail at love, friendship or other relationships.

We wouldn't have record numbers of young people struggling with mental illnesses. We wouldn't have so many people in our rich first world societies struggling with a sense of loneliness and a lack of belonging.

Whether we really want to admit it or not (and mostly we don't) we are emotionally vulnerable at many, many points in our lives. Yes, we can learn to improve our sense of self-worth and self-love. I definitely have. But this doesn't mean that we can expect ourselves and others of ever reaching a point where we can be 100% secure 100% of the time.

Sometimes were all as weak as infants and the strong fronts, the ones we put up to others to make ourselves seem so inhuman, stop us from having the breakdowns we need in order to put ourselves back together in a better way. 

And as we put ourselves back together, often we'll need someone or many someones to help us know where to fit those pieces in. 

You Don't Have to Be Flawless to Be Loved

Love yourself. Before you can love another person you have to love yourself first. I’m sure most of us have heard one or both of these two bits of advice at some point.

Maybe we even gave it to someone else who was struggling.

 

Since I’m a person who’s usually very open about my personal struggles (depression, loneliness, dating, relationships etc.) I’ve heard the philosophy of self-love first, expressed to me many, many times. Friends, relatives and an ex-lover have all advised me to improve my self-love and self-confidence.

 

This is not, on the whole, bad advice. In fact it’s very truthful. Yes, a person needs to have a certain amount of self-assurance, confidence and love for themselves in order to be a good friend, coworker lover and human being. I certainly needed to improve my self-love. I still do. But in trying to understand how to better love myself I got a lot of things wrong as I think many others do too.

 

I’ve grown more certain of my own strength and value as a person. As that’s happened I’ve also come to realize that sometimes the ideas people have of what it really means to love themselves, can be pretty skewed and even counterproductive.

 

I think this is especially true when it comes to the idea of being able to love oneself before loving another person.

 

For a long time, I tried to achieve self-love by telling myself that I needed to eliminate all negative thoughts or forces in my life. Yet time and time again, life, depression and anxiety pushed negativity into me and I found myself despairing.

 

I told myself it was my fault, I didn’t love myself enough. If I only loved myself enough than I wouldn’t feel these dark emotions. If I only loved myself enough like everyone else around me than I wouldn’t have any of the struggles with self-hate I have.

 

‘Love yourself! Why can’t you love yourself!?’ I remember repeating this line in my head over and over again during my really dark depressive episodes. How could I possibly love myself if I couldn’t be 100% strong 100% of the time? Why couldn’t I achieve this level of perfect never ending self-esteem and love that people told me was out there if I only wanted it hard enough?

 

It was only after some CBT therapy, discovering the wonderful School of Life and some unusually frank and honest discussions with people I know that I realized my approach to self-love was all wrong. 

 

Self-love I came to realize, was not becoming a ‘perfect’ human being that never took a wrong step, experienced sadness, depression, self-loathing, anxiety or doubt. It wasn’t about being a person that never asked for help that never admitted their dark times.

 Self-love was about accepting your darkness as well as your light and realizing that despite your profound flaws you were still worthy of love and respect.

 

I didn’t have to be a demi-god with no weaknesses in order to love myself or for others to love me.

 

I didn’t have to be perfect and neither did anybody else. Many times the people I looked up to and thought could never experience the kind of doubt, loneliness and insecurity I did turned out to be struggling with that every day.

 

I was flawed and imperfect creature. I could and would fail. I could and would have days that would make me question my worth and my existence. This was all true and it was also true that I was still a worthy human being.

This is also true of every other human being on the planet and this has given me a lot of reassurance as I’ve begun exploring dating and relationships after a long hiatus.

 

I don’t have to be flawless and totally void of insecurity to be worthy of love and neither does anyone else. Everyone I know and you know is deeply, profoundly damaged in one way or another and that’s nothing we need to hide.

 

 

When I Wish I Was Somebody Else

 

 

‘I wish I had your personality.’ This was the first time (at least that I can recall) saying that out loud. It was a thought that I had many times throughout my life in relation to myself and others.

 

My highly extroverted friend, who was sitting across from me in the Japanese restaurant, raised his eyes: ‘Don’t man. There’s nothing wrong with your personality.’

We talked a while after that. We caught up, discussed my recent breakup a little more and then went back to our homes. That part of our meal stuck with me though. It mirrored the internal debate I’ve had with myself off and on for most of my life.

Like many people, my confidence and self-assuredness has grown as I’ve gotten older. I’ve gotten better at managing my bouts of self-hatred, depression and checking my emotions in tough situations. I’ve come to better accept my sensitivity and my introversion for the gifts they provide as well as the handicaps.

Still, despite all the progress I’ve made, I’m not immune from deep self-doubt and insecurity. Nor will I ever be. I still struggle to accept myself. Yet I also have a hard time accepting the fact that the people I know (friends, colleagues and loved ones) are also battling their own inner demons. I struggle to see them as fallible people who can be just as unsure of themselves and their place in the world as I am. 

 

This is especially hard for me to accept when it comes to extroverts, people who I have envied and idolized in the past.

 

For a long time, I saw my introversion as something that made me inferior to the social colossi that I befriended or ran with. Sure, I had my own petty prejudices where extroverts were concerned. 

 

They were shallow, they were either afraid of or lacked they ability to have deeper emotions or thoughts, they never took the time to really know people etc.

Deep down though, in my awkward adolescent and college years, I felt deeply inferior to my extroverted friends. A large part of this was the (American) society I was exposed to for a good portion of my life. To quote Emma Watson: ‘If you’re anything other than an extrovert you’re made to think there’s something wrong with you.’

That was my belief for a very long time. It was one I still haven’t completely shed. Many a time I’ve thought: ‘If I was a social butterfly my life would be better.’

In short, the grass often seemed greener in extrovert land. No one who lived there dealt with or could have possibility dealt with the problems and insecurities I did. 

 

Of course, that’s not true. The open conversations I’ve had with those people I unfairly held up on a pedestal made that very clear. Hearing my extroverted friends’ stories, realizing the social butterflies could struggle with social anxiety and self-loathing, realizing that they could be just as unsure of their own abilities, discovering that sometimes those bright (and genuine) veneers I so admired covered deep wounds and insecurities that were just as real as mine, humbled me.

Who I am is not inherently worse than those who have mastered strengths that I find more difficult to learn. That’s something that I and everyone else should take time to appreciate.

 

Being an A-Hole is Not a Good Thing

One night, while I was out at a bar with a group of colleagues, someone in our crowd started texting a man she was seeing.

Someone else in the group, who knew this woman better than I did, probed her about why she was talking to said man. It turned out he was married and she had found this out a few weeks earlier.

Her friend's rebuff made her defensive. She'd also had a few drinks so it wasn't a surprise that she snapped at him.

Her reply (I'm paraphrasing as I'd also had a few that night) was along the lines of:

'Yeah, I know he's an asshole but at least he's not a pushover.'

Something about this exchange has stuck with me since I overheard it two years ago. The woman in this story was not, in my experience, a bad person. She was very generous and actually helped me out during a sever depressive episode.

I don't think she's horrible. To me this sentiment 'It's better to be an asshole than...' is just a very sad reflection of modern culture.

We've somehow accepted that being a complete douche-nozzle to the people around you reflects strength. A-holeness is a virtue, something to strive for. Being the biggest middle finger to people you disagree with or don't get along with is a prized trait in romance, media and politics. We don't appreciate someone who can bridge divides or resolve problems. We adore the ego-maniacs who step on everyone around them as they climb the ladder.

There's a number of reasons why a man like Donald Trump has a very solid chance of being the leader of the most powerful nation on earth. And while I don't think his belligerent dickishness is the only cause of his rise, it's certainly a major part of it.

It's not a stretch for anyone listening to Trump or the people who adore him, that 'telling it like it is' equates to saying the most hateful things you can just to make the person on the other side angry and hurt.

Yet Trump is just the most prominent example of how much we value A-holes in our society. Reality shows abound with awful people doing awful things to each other. Some of the best fictional TV shows star narcissistic characters, who though enjoyable to watch, also do horrible things to others.

And I think that's why we love A-holes. They're entertaining and often very driven. I get the appeal of someone so outrageously full of themselves that they don't (appear) to care what other people think and go after their goals.

I doubt though, if push came to shove, any of us would say that we'd enjoy working for a boss like Trump or having a friend like Kanye West. Most people would also get pretty sick of a boyfriend of girlfriend sleeping around or breaking their promises to us.

That's because the A-holes biggest problem is that they rarely benefit others around them. They use people and discard them and very often their self-centerdness is not a sign of strength but an indication that they need to overcompensate for their insecurity.

Yet still too many people fall for their deceptions only to realize later how much they regretted wasting their time on someone who couldn't have cared less about them. 

Don't Wait Until They're Gone

Celebrity deaths have been plentiful these past four months.

David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Prince and other notables have left their fans and admirers behind. Each death results in an outpouring of sad tweets and tribute statuses on social media. Other people in the limelight devote a few minutes to remembering their life and legacy.

I've been a part of this reaction a few times in the last few years. I was particularly struck when Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robin Williams passed away in quick succession.

Yet recently, as I saw my newsfeed fill up with tributes for Prince I started to wonder about this familiar cycle of mourning that we the public engage in and what it says about us.

I don't doubt the sincerity of many people who share mournful statuses about how much a notable artist touched their lives. As I said, I've done that myself (most recently with Alan Rickman)

There is a part of me though that wonders why we people wait until this person we cared for so much is gone before expressing how much they meant to us.   

Wouldn't they have appreciated this outpouring of love and gratitude while they were still around to enjoy it?

I think this can be applied not just to celebrities but to our loved ones in general. We all have people who have touched us and who we have touched in return. Once more, we live in an age where technology allows us to reach out and communicate with these people in just a few moments. It's never been easier to send a loving message to an old friend, send an appreciative text or make a call.

For all the idealistic images floating around Instagram and Facebook expressing how important it is to value people over status or possessions, I wonder if most of us practice what we share as well as we could.

All too often, the praise and love we shower on another person comes after they can no longer see it, feel it or read it.

There are a million reasons (some better than others) for why we don't tell others what they mean to us. Maybe we fear being vulnerable, maybe we think we're too busy or consumed by our own problems. Maybe it's too easy to ignore that email or text. Maybe you think that your actions convey your true feelings and that's enough.

I understand all of that. I've given myself these reasons as well. Yet somehow I don't think any of them can truly hold up.

At the end of the day, we can vanish from life at any point. No matter how young or healthy we might be, we could be gone. That's the truth. We should take anyone we know and love for granted. So tell those precious to you just how amazing they are. It may be the last chance you get.

Love Letter to the Rejected

Dear You, 

 

That's the you reading these words. Whoever you are I wish you love; whether I know you are not. 

 

I didn't have the easiest weekend. If you're reading this there's a strong chance you've been having a harder time too. I don't know who rejected you or in what circumstances. Maybe a boyfriend? A girlfriend? Your dream job? Your friends?

I was rejected. I thought I had a dream job in the bag. The people at the other end of my interview thought otherwise. I traveled several thousand miles and spent money and time all to be told. 'Unfortunately, we can't offer you a position.'

That's an easy thing to type out.

There's nothing easy about absorbing a rejection though. You've experienced it too. You know. And I just want to say to you and me. Don't hate yourself for it.

 

Often times you see it coming or at the very least, you know it's a real possibility. You know things don't always turn out how you expect them. You know things can go south and that you shouldn't take that personally.

You've heard all the platitudes: 'You only fail if you don't try.' 'Who said life was fair?' Maybe you've heard them from well-meaning loved ones. Often, it comes from the voice in your head trying to reassure you.

You know rejection is to be expected. You know it. You've seen it and chances are, you've felt it before.

Here's the thing though. Rejection is painful, no matter what. And when it attacks, you absorb it and feel all its claw marks. It will inflict pain, no matter how thick your armor. There's no way around it. You shouldn't expect yourself to be immune to it. No one is. It will hurt you and sometimes your spirit will be slashed to strips.

When a lover rebuffs us. When a dream job slips from our grasp. When the school, person, application or career we invested so much of ourselves in vanishes between our fingers and winds up shattered on the floor.

When we try, try and try to be the people we want to be yet despite all our efforts we still get our souls trampled into the muck. 

When all that happens. Remember, that's ok. You're human. You fail. You feel shitty because you fail. That's ok.

You're not perfect. I'm not. Neither are the people you imagine to have lives free of the struggles you do. 

To be human is to have yourself ravaged by rejection more often than not.

And yet I also want to say, you don't have to let your demon say: 'I was right! I was right all along! You were worthless! You are nothing! I own you! I was right!'

At some point, you will have the strength to reach out grab it's rotting arm and say:

'You are only right if I allow you to be!'

Your wounds can heal. You can clean them. You can sew them up. You can shake until you become unshakable. You can put yourself out there again. You can keep going.

Much Love,
A Fellow Reject 

Love Letter to the Worthless

Dear Sir or Madame,

You are a sir and you are a madame. You are a dignified person. I don't want to call you worthless because that is not what you are.

But you think you are and that is why I titled this post 'A Love Letter to the Worthless'.

I needed to get your attention. I hope I hold it.

I have thought myself worthless many times.

Thinking about my supposed worthlessness tonight is what prompted me to punch these words on my keyboard and post them into cyberspace.

We are told, by someone, at a young age that we are not good enough. Years later we can scarcely remember why we were supposedly not good enough. Yet we still think we are worthless.

We drink or smoke ourselves to new worlds. Because we hate our world for not being better. We hate ourselves for not being stronger. We want to feel okay and that intoxicants are often the only way we feel okay.

Or we drive ourselves mad with work. We throw ourselves completely into the pursuit or money and fame. We tell ourselves we can never be enough.

We are enough. We have always been enough. We were enough as children before someone told us we were not enough.

I'm not here to give you a psychological cure for your sense of insecurity. You like me have probably already googled your eyes red night after night searching for self-help articles.

All I want to say is this. You are more than enough. You are beautiful.

You won't believe it and I won't blame you for it. I don't believe it as often as I should either. Yet it's the truth.

You -man, woman, teenager, child, elder- you're not what the shade that infects your head says. You are not. You don't have to be.

Beauty is in you. Greatness is in you. You are a living, breathing, loving, caring passionate human. You are thrust into a world that wants beauty to die for the sake of conformity.

Don't die. Don't die. Don't let your beauty die.

You don't deserve it. You don't deserve it.

You dear one are beautiful. You are extravagant. 

Much Love,
A Fellow Sojourner