Do you know why receiving compassion is the easiest thing in the world? It’s because you’re so good at the other easiest thing to do in the world.
No, it isn’t sleeping in on our days off, although that is very easy to do. Also, it is not screwing up while typing so we can practice backspacing over our mistakes. I am a champion at that, however. Moreover, it isn’t even dumping our entire day down the drain and having nothing to show for it at the end.
It’s much less fun than any of these. The easiest thing in the world to do is deeply carved into our brains. It’s not even our fault.
It’s feeling sorry for ourselves.
Why do we feel sorry for ourselves?
Insulted? Don’t be. We were carefully taught to feel sorry for ourselves all our lives. Think back as far as you can. For example, did you ever, as a child, cry from hurt feelings? What happened as a result? Your parents or your teacher or somebody nearby tried to console you. As they should have, right?
And what did that do for you? It made you feel validated. It made you feel like somebody noticed you and cared for you; that is, your hurt feelings got you some personal attention.
Whenever something bad happens in your life, even today, and you appear depressed about it, this starts a sequence of events. Somebody shows compassion for you. You feel validated. You feel better by feeling bad. You can then get on with your day. That’s quite a method, isn’t it? So, we don’t hold back the next time, because somebody, again, is going to show sympathy. Or better yet: empathy.
The perfect role model for self-pity
Then there are the other great teachers of self-pity. One such expert was my mother, who was often right: “With my luck, the pot of chicken will boil over and the house will catch on fire.” Sure enough. The pot of chicken turned into a volcano and the house caught fire from an over-melting candle. Not just one event, as she predicted, but two separate events brought her vision to life. If there were a game show about guessing which bad-luck events would happen, she would have won the million-dollar prize. Because of her effortless wins, I decided I wanted to be just as successful as Mom.
We all felt bad for Mom, and we should have. (Don’t worry; we didn’t lose the house and the overdone chicken just became gourmet vittles for the cats.)
Don’t be like her with your book
So, here’s where some of us are now: “With my luck, I’ll write my book, and everybody will laugh at me.”
Or:
“With my luck, I’ll write my book and manage to get it published, but it will cause some international controversy and my name will be Mud for the rest of my days.”
Or anything that makes us think we aren’t good enough, haven’t worked hard enough, didn’t do things “smart enough,” didn’t do it soon enough, or otherwise screwed up our big chance.
And we feel sorry for ourselves.
You probably think I’m going to be a drill sergeant and yell at you for being mamby-pamby. Or whatever it is they say. “Get over it.” “Walk it off.” “Just for that, you’re on KP for the rest of boot camp.”
Nope. If you act like a drill sergeant to yourself, that would require getting mad at yourself. That may sound effective, but it doesn’t work for everybody.
Sucked down a black hole of despair
Instead, I say, “Turn it around!” Don’t think of it as feeling sorry for yourself. Why? Because that is what makes us feel ashamed of ourselves. Feeling ashamed of ourselves is depressing. Getting depressed results in motivation paralysis. Feeling paralyzed keeps us from being productive, which, in turn, makes us feel ashamed of ourselves. Coming full-circle, feeling ashamed of ourselves makes us feel sorry for ourselves.
See what an infinite trap this is? It can go on for a long…long…long time.
Don’t feel sorry for yourself. The word you should come to know is Compassion. What’s the difference?
Well, compassion yields different results, because it uses different remedies. “Feeling sorry for one’s self” means “I’ll just drown my sorrows in a Dairy Queen Blizzard. Then I might feel a little better.” This does yield good results, except for the fact that we only feel better while we’re eating the Blizzard.
“Compassion for one’s self” means “I think I know why I feel (inadequate, underqualified, ineffective, untalented, etc.). I’m going to fight back to dispel this myth about myself by looking at the facts.”
Examples of facts:
- You feel inadequate because you made the mistake of looking at somebody else’s work, and you just “know” you could never write to that level of genius. Realty: That writer is only one person, and there are MANY highly intelligent and talented writers whose books never even get off the iPad. Even more than that, there are many regular people out there who have used their own styles of cleverness to write bestsellers. (Remember this book: Sh*t My Dad Says.)
- You feel underqualified because it seems like every Upwork ghostwriting job posting “requires” a master’s degree in The Study of the Effects of Phenylalanine on the Endoplasmic Reticulum of the Aborigines. Or something equally obscure. Reality: Not everybody needs such unique qualifications in a writer; only the ones having trouble finding such unique writers feel the need to post the job.
- You feel ineffective because the newsletter you write at work gets completely re-written by your boss every time. Reality: This happens to everybody except the boss.
- You feel mediocre because sometimes you get stuck and you can’t make the story come out the way it reads in your head. Reality: Your consciousness is blocking your creativity. The words will flow better when you are more relaxed, usually when you least expect it. (More on this in another blog post.)
All you need is you and your words
“Compassion” also means “I know there are things I can do right, so through whatever cleverness and wit and spirit I can muster, I will use my true capabilities to render my shortcomings negligible.” Successful writers do this. Really. You can, too.
So, don’t beat up on yourself. Anger is exhausting.
Don’t feel sorry for yourself. This is self-defeating.
Don’t comfort yourself with a Dairy Queen Blizzard, for it is not bottomless.
Finally, don’t go out of your way to get a Ph.D. in Marsupials of the Western Hemisphere and knock yourself out by writing a doctoral dissertation on The Evolution of Possums—because possums have remained pretty much unchanged for 65-million years and you’d be wasting your time.
Remember that you are good enough just the way you are. Use yourself to your fullest capabilities.
And for whatever reason you want, feel good about yourself.