Responsibility Rebellion: An Unconventional Approach to Personal Empowerment

by Kain Ramsay

Everyone with an inferiority complex has a shadow of a superiority complex buried inside them somewhere which reveals itself in different ways.

social media posts under the false belief they’re being impactful and adding meaning to the world, when in reality, all they’re doing is adding more water into the ocean.

Every time you choose to do something in life, you are choosing not to do something else. This is known as opportunity cost

is to choose one’s way in life’. Frankl elaborated further, claiming that ‘between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom’.

People suffering with imposter syndrome live on edge; they fear they will suddenly be humiliated and unmasked, as though someone lurking in their sphere of influence is taking notes and building up a collective folder of faults and inconsistencies to use against them one day.

Imposter syndrome is just one example of a type of insecurity many people feel. People can drown in chronic shame and anxiety over personal, economic, social, cultural, or professional insecurities. Because of the emotional pressure insecurities place on individuals, people are usually quick to find a solution to escape the discomfort and pain they’re going through. The solution is usually somewhat dramatic: they crash-diet or starve themselves, change their appearance through surgery or extreme cosmetics, quit their job,

cut people out of their life, delete social media, become more aggressive or more complacent and reserved, break off their relationships, or over-exercise. Whatever method they choose, the intention is to rip the insecurity from themselves in one clear swoop and disassociate from it entirely in the hopes that the problem will cease to exist.

Boy, if I haven't done all of those things and on multiple occasions.

Thoughts are the mother of insecurities. Insecurity is nothing more than a thought, a belief, an ethereal object which cannot be dyed, slimmed, promoted, demoted, salaried, painted, broken up with, or bought. The worse you think about yourself, the worse you’re going to feel in life. Your thoughts determine how you behave, act, and feel, and thus have the most critical impact on how you view and, ultimately, conduct yourself. Whilst people may say or do things which hurt you and feed into your negative beliefs, no one can make you think in a particular way about yourself; how you respond mentally and emotionally is up to you.

As your thoughts persist, so does your externalisation of them. The unhelpful and destructive behaviours your thoughts trip you into engaging with evolve into habits: turning to the bottle becomes your daily ritual, that cheat-day pizza and ice cream binge becomes your regular nightly dinner, your snappiness becomes your default setting, and your break from socialising becomes a state of permanent isolation. Before you know it, you find yourself in a permanent cycle of self-flagellation. You hate yourself for continuing to do what you do and beat yourself up horrendously over it, but no amount of self-chastisement is enough to put an end to it.

Your greatest problems in life aren’t the actions you take, the emotions you have, or the things that happen to you; they’re the thoughts you fail to manage.

You can’t and shouldn’t suppress your emotions, no matter how capable you are of monitoring and modifying your thoughts.

Emotions shouldn’t be treated as an instruction manual but rather as a GPS. It’s not in your best interest to follow and succumb to the instructions dictated by your emotions. Instead, use your emotions to unfold the internal root source of them to understand yourself and your emotional drives a little better.

Many people believe that life is a constant struggle, that they should always act nice and sweet to everyone, no matter how they’re feeling. These people believe they are nothing unless they can prove their worth to someone and earn their love and acceptance. They believe their feelings are not important enough to be considered by others. They want to be loved and accepted so much that they bottle up their true thoughts and feelings to avoid all the confrontation and difficulty the thoughts and feelings may evoke.

We believe our worthlessness is a universal truth rather than a subjective opinion.

Failing to acknowledge limiting beliefs as subjective opinions cause people to live stress- and anxiety-filled lives within the confines of a self-enforced enclosure.

Baby elephants were kept in captivity with just a rope around their neck, picketed to the ground. As a baby, an elephant isn’t strong enough to free itself; it tries and tries with all its might until one day it gives up and admits defeat. The baby elephant believes it’s not strong enough to break free, so it stops trying and carries this belief into adulthood.

The fondness of familiarity sets people up for failure.

Overcoming limiting beliefs depends on a person’s willingness to challenge and replace their beliefs with contrasting ones which feel uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and potentially threatening to their sense of self.

The negative biases we assign ourselves in childhood regarding who we are become our reference points in life. Throughout our adulthood, we naturally look for evidence supporting our negative biases. If your negative bias is skewed against your favour because you believe you’re inherently wrong and not good enough, you will look for evidence to support and nurture your negative beliefs at every opportunity you get.

You are the negative constant plaguing your life.

Those who believe people are evil and selfish will become consumed by a prism of cynicism, passive-aggressiveness, and loneliness and may, ironically, become renowned by others for being selfish and withheld.

Those with a fixed mindset, therefore, spend their lives trying to prove themselves rather than focusing on learning from the mistakes they made.

I’ve seen so many people with this one consuming goal of proving themselves—in the classroom, in their careers, and in their relationships. Every situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality, or character. Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser?

Those with fixed mindsets, she argues, believe that certain people in life are dealt better hands when it comes to personality, intelligence, and charisma. They don’t regard culturally admired and desired traits as cultivated skills people have developed through years of practice.

We’re susceptible to adopting our parents’ ways of thinking and being when we’re young, but we aren’t destined to maintain them. As we grow in autonomy and maturity, it is our responsibility to look at our thought patterns and behaviours and identify which ones are helping us and which ones are hurting us.

and to place blame for certain core beliefs on other people is nothing but disempowering and unhelpful.

you spend your life perpetually constructing and deconstructing your beliefs.

Negativity bias can have profound effects on not only your self-esteem but your relationships as well. Your biases can cause you to expect the worst in others or be more attuned to their faults and flaws. They can cause you to prejudge the intentions of or reactions from others, triggering you to act allusive, passive, confrontational, or avoidant pre-emptively, in order to avoid perceived negative outcomes.

The first step is to allow yourself to become open to believing in something new which conflicts with your existing belief.

you must hold at the forefront of your mind the following: my old beliefs didn’t serve me and believing in this will only keep me stuck where I am.

You have spent most of your life trying to impress and change for other people: your bosses, parents, partners, children, friends, colleagues, teachers, and strangers. Yet you have rarely checked in on yourself and asked who you want to be, for yourself and others.

After you’ve identified one or more limiting beliefs, the next step requires you to challenge and start doubting their legitimacy. Start poking holes in your beliefs by bombarding them with counter-evidence and arguments before finally implementing a replacement belief for them. Decide on what your new belief will be and start seeking situations and evidence which legitimise and validate the new belief. Even if you aren’t fully invested in the new belief’s validity, act as though it is true and cement your motivation for investing in it by imagining what your future will look like if it were true.

You can’t sit there in your room telling yourself that you’re wrong, that you are in fact capable of becoming a brilliant writer, without sitting down and starting to write something. Losing weight, getting that job, achieving that degree, or acquiring that skill won’t make you the person you want to become—the process of getting there will.

Someone who is fundamentally secure in who they are is already free because they don’t need to rely on external factors for security.

you have no control over how things unfold and what happens to you. You can’t control how other people treat you, the economy, politics, all aspects of your health, or the interactions you have. All you’re able to control in life is how you respond to what happens to you.

Relationships are one of the first things people sacrifice in the pursuit of ‘happiness’. They forget the significance of connection and totally overlook how important a sense of belonging is to one’s self-worth and value. Think back to the last time you went on that holiday you saved years for; that holiday you told everyone about and spent your office hours daydreaming of in anticipation. If you were to ask yourself what the most fulfilling part of your holiday was, would you argue it was the poolside you spent hours sunbathing on or the wonderful locals you met and connected with, or the moments you shared with your family and friends?

Personal significance, to them, is a core value, so they do everything in their power to prove their worthiness to other people.

His work demanded he travel all over the world for weeks and sometimes months at a time. Whilst his job meant he had been able to fully support his wife and children, send his children to the best private schools, and pay for their university fees, it came at a huge price: alienation.

Robert felt, as many people do, that if he wasn’t making any progress in life, his life was meaningless,

There’s a reason why those of us who get stuck in what we perceive as dead-end jobs, relationships, or places become depressed and unmotivated. We need to progress in life in order to feel fulfilled. Because very few of us know how to determine our own significance outside of external factors such as career, wealth, company, and status, we are all vulnerable to falling into this pit of defeatism and purposelessness.

was that when we’re too busy trying to prove our significance to the world, we do so at the cost of meaningful connection, acceptance, and a sense of belonging because we live our lives chasing external approval, titles, and status rather than focussing on sharing our authentic selves with others. We can claim to be significant, but unless we’re giving people the value we have to offer, they won’t see us as significant. True significance is earned when you give others your most valuable commodity: time.

So, what role do core values play in this discussion and exactly where do they fit in? Core values can be used to help you understand what you actually want in life, which, in turn, helps you prioritise your time and goals. Prioritising your time efficiently helps you achieve inner peace because it encourages you to spend your time on more significant matters rather than time-consuming and emotionally draining activities. If you don’t understand or recognise your core values, you’ll find yourself drowning in an unending sense of confusion and chaos.

Your core values are like your invisible Jiminy Crickets: they’re quiet most of the time, so you’re never really aware of them until you’re going astray—then they show themselves.

if you grew up in an unhealthy environment which taught you that life is a constant struggle, you will likely value martyrdom.

For example, if your mother was always angry and aggressive, you would naturally internalise her anger and engage in behaviours such as self-blame, self-hatred, and shame; or if your father was always missing and having fights with your other parent, you would naturally feel inclined to believe they were fighting about you.

Children only have one source of comfort, warmth, and food (i.e., their guardian), so they need to behave in a way which ensures they keep their access to vital resources secure. Children, therefore, are hyper-aware of the emotions they elicit from their primary caregivers and respond in the way most beneficial to them.

Happiness gives you an adrenaline rush, but once you’re on that high you only have two choices: you either allow yourself to crash and burn or you continue chasing the sugar-laden frenzy by consuming more. On the other hand, fulfilment acts like protein; you don’t feel the energy it gives you because it’s more subtle than that of sugar, nor do you realise it’s keeping your cravings at bay, but it keeps you content and satisfied enough to carry on and focus on what you want to do.

Life is constructed of trade-offs: everything you do in life comes at the cost of everything you don’t. You can’t put 100 percent meaningful effort, energy, or passion into everything you’d like to in life; progress and mastery require exclusion. You can’t be an Olympic athlete or a famous singer and actor who stars in Hollywood films who studied medicine and has a family who they spend all their free time with whilst also finding the time to write a bestseller, go to the gym three times a week, and travel the world on a regular basis. Granted, you can do all of these things on some level throughout your lifetime. You can play sports, go to the gym, write a book, travel the world, act in a play, and sing, but you can’t achieve all of them to the greatest standard you want all at the same time.

your significance in life cannot be self-directed or dictated; it’s only determined by others based on the value you give them.

Most people regularly fall into the trap of defining their value by these external factors; you likely believe that every failure you have depletes your value, that your salary equates your value, and that your body shape defines your social value. People all fall into this trap because they’ve been indoctrinated into a system which treats them like commodities: they sell their time to pay the rent and survive; they wear advertisements for companies, and they sell even more of their time to fund social media platforms and streaming services.