I feel worthless most of the time. Do you ever feel that way? This is my quest to figure out why and what to do about it.
Ride this roller coaster of emotions with me, from the depths of deep despair and feelings of utter failure to the heights of...
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1. Perception does not equal reality Imagine a pond filled with water. At first it is crystal clear. That's our view of the world starting out. But over time as muddy water gets added and the pond stirred up, the water becomes less clear. That's our brain and view of the world as we get older and the mud represents our experiences, both good and bad, getting mixed into our pond. They naturally cloud our view over time. We don't see things clearly even though we think we do. And that's true for everyone. We base our opinions on what we've learned in the past, of course! But that means our perception is always clouded by our experiences.
What we think about ourselves and who we really are do not always match. Actually, rarely do we have an accurate view of ourselves or reality! I may think I'm fat but to someone who weighs 50 pounds more than me, I'm thin. So how do we know who or what is right? You and I can look at the same thing and see two different things, just like the number 9 (or 6) painted on the ground. Our brains make sense of life based on our senses, our knowledge and our past experiences. But what we think and know to be true may not be accurate. The question is, how do we see the world clearly?
Only babies have clean slates absorbing everything. The rest of us have things we've learned that help us make sense of the world but also muddy or skew our view of things towards what we already know. That's how we learn to connect things. But, our perception or view of everything is always tilted towards what we think already, not necessarily what is right or accurate.
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Imagine seeing the world thru clear water in a glass -- that's how babies and kids see things, clearly how they are, without any bias. Now imagine that same glass but seeing the world thru our clouded experiences in life (breakups, heart aches, people who have wronged us, lost loves, past hurts, etc.). That's how adults see the world after years of experiences clouding our vision. And it doesn't always have to be bad experiences. Good and bad experiences change our view of the world. If I try pizza and like it, then I think all pizza is good! (not true - there are bad pizzas but my skewed perception now is pizza is good because the first one I tasted I liked). So none of us see reality accurately. We always see thru the muddied waters of our past experiences, good and bad. Our clouded vision of reality can and does alter our view of ourselves too. The question is, what do we do about that? What's real?
