Bettering yourself, part 11: is it worth it?
These are ways to get recognised and have people think more highly of you. But the epidemic of low self-esteem and the tendency to over-analyse the self to excess still persists. That means that if you use these tips, and people start to notice, they may well flock to you with their own needs or offences.
See, I’ve given you the previous tips assuming that you are just an average person who could start focusing their behaviour in a few new directions if you hadn’t thought of doing them yet. But the people in your vicinity won’t like change, I reckon. They won’t enjoy the idea that you are bettering yourself, because again, what does that mean about them? How could your behaviour possibly, slightly tangibly reflect upon them? Well, in their universe, that’s all it means in most instances.
So what’s the result? A few things: people feel guilty around you (Fuck ‘em! Let ‘em) and they may also ask you to do more stuff.
I suppose if you raise your standards, and create higher expectations of yourself, others do the same, holding you to a higher standard, increasing their expectations of you.
The fact that you are doing stuff and being positive is not a reflection of your average-Joe new-direction but is, to the, uh, poorly adjusted(?), evidence that in fact you are simply more of a capable person than the average-Joe, which means you should probably do more stuff than the rest of us since ‘Life doesn’t seem to affect you as much as it does me, and since you’re just so inherently good at stuff—no, it isn’t that you have the same standard worries as me and make an effort to discount them; you simply don’t have them, clearly, because if you had them, you wouldn’t do more stuff. Only I am allowed to vacillate back and forth in terms of my opinions, my energy levels, my motivation. You have just one setting, in my mind, and it’s higher than mine. So do more stuff! Do stuff for me! Hey: why aren’t you your usual, productive self today? You’ve normally got a smile on your face. Today no smile. Did the elastic cords in your mouth snap or something? See, I’ve got these muscles in my face that allow me to manipulate my mouth into a variety of expressions, and those expressions are representative of moods created by the flow of various neurotransmitters in complicated structures inside this thing called a brain that I have, but you? I think I saw you on Sesame Street teaching kids about the letter F or some shit.’
You remember that one from school? ‘You’re normally so funny. What’s up with you?’ Not like “Can I help” but “perform that one role you have in my life, minion, because I’m the protagonist today and forever, motherfucker!”
Careful what you wish for. More attention means more expectations and a bigger proportion of people who have a weaker and weaker impression of who you are, in inverse proportion to their proximity to you.
Once you become even slightly more in demand, you’ll notice, and your brain will do that thing where it quickly resets your surroundings to normality, and now not only do you feel more or less the same, but you have even further to fall! Which means you’ll start complaining again no matter how nice your stuff is. I think this is why people say they don’t like fame, or they’re rather they hadn’t won the lottery. As I mentioned in a recent book review, I read this psychology paper recently about how the children of rich people are mostly raised by maids, don’t learn the value of money or achievements, are raised to feel guilty about their wealth, like a type of original sin, and often have trouble finding a sympathetic therapist, since their problem is ‘a problem everyone would want.’
Our minds bring everything back to baseline, and you’ll probably feel just as happy about your circumstances after doing the thing as before. But again: you might think that attempting to be invisible was a better option for your day-to-day life than this bullshit, but, hey: you might as well find out either way, right?
