Releasing My Insecurities
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kamya
Well-known member
Xpendable said:
Yeah dood. Submit to doing what you need to do to better yourself. Jobs and going back to college may help. And like you said, try developing more interests and hobbies.
The majority of guys in relationships aren't "brutes". It's such a limiting belief you seem to be holding to. But it's cool that you are starting to think of ways you can improve. I can tell your perspective is changing a little, which is going to end up leaving you a lot better off.
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Paraiyar
Guest
Xpendable said:
Nah man, don't submit. Be a wolf amongst the sheeple by never working and not leaving home...
kamya
Well-known member
Paraiyar said:
That's right. Tendies, deenz, and neetbux are the one and only true path to self improvement. =p true alpha mhmm.
TheSkaFish
Jedi Guardian
Rainbows said:
Because for one, lots of other people have managed to do better than minimum wage with the same qualifications and skills as I have, maybe even less. I don't expect to just get the salary of a licensed professional, but I already have a bachelor's degree in a practical field and I've always been considered above-average intellectually, and I can grasp concepts and perform tasks more complex than that. And I definitely feel more competent than I was when I was in those jobs. I know I am capable of more than cashiering, making fast food, or stacking boxes. It's one of the few things I'm confident in, about myself. But if that is false, then I fear I'm hopeless.
It's also because minimum wage is an environment of failure, frustration, and despair. It would prove the old story true that I've been trying so hard to disprove, to break, to escape - the idea that I am not good enough to get what I want because I am fundamentally, at my core a loser, that is what I am and I just have to accept that I am a loser and will never have, do, or be anything. That I am naturally incompetent and inferior and incapable of success no matter what I try or how hard or how smart I work. In all those jobs, all the people there were broken, beaten down, defeated. No one was confident, no one was proud, no one seemed capable, no one acted like they believed in themselves and their ability to do well. They were the complete opposite of how I want to be. Going back to that would reaffirm my old story of being powerless.
Rainbows said:
I guess, but I do still believe that there are lots of people who don't work hard but still get a lot because of luck or their social station. I am not one of those people, so hard work would be my only choice. I haven't worked hard in the past, though, because due to my feeling that I was untalented, I felt that working hard was pointless for me because I could only do so well and no more. I believed that I couldn't get what I want because I was naturally just not good enough for it. I felt like a "lesser" because the way I was treated and the way I felt about my abilities influenced my view of myself, as I described in my first post. Because of that I did not view the world positively and every defeat seemed to be more proof of this.
I still have trouble committing to working hard at anything because I still have the persistent doubts that anything I do will work, that maybe it's that I'm just not good enough.
Rainbows said:
I really don't think I'm searching for the wrong kinds of girls. I want the ones who could give me the experience I want. I want the ones who are beautiful and fascinating and seem special to me. The problem is, they are on a higher level than I am because they have had themselves figured out for a while. I hope to be on their level one day, but am not there yet. I know I have to work on myself to catch up.
However, the brutes are naturally suited to the task of attracting women because masculinity and femininity attract each other, and being a brute requires an abundance of fundamentally masculine traits. The brutes are confident because of a lifetime of things going their way. They've always been able to intimidate other guys physically, and due to their money, attitude, and interests they have high social status. Also, brutes are anti-intellectual by definition, and because of this, they just don't think enough to have self-doubt in the first place.
By contrast, a lot of my traits fundamentally don't attract women. At the center of these is my lack of confidence in myself, my self-doubt, my fear that I am a "lesser" and can't get what I want no matter what. Unlike the brutes, I don't have a history of success, so I feel like I have no reason to be confident in my ability to succeed, which gives me a bad attitude which causes me to be unattractive. Also, I don't do anything to go for what I want or to pursue interests which would allow me to have stimulating conversation, because I don't believe it will matter anyway because of low self-confidence, and that perpetuates my unattractiveness. I know I have to work on myself to catch up to the girls I like, but I never feel like doing the work because I never feel like it will matter. Meanwhile, the brutes coast by on their confidence from past wins and their hyper-masculinity.
Rainbows said:
That's the thing. I never believed it was in my hands at all and I still have a hard time convincing myself that it is, and that the world isn't just split up into the lucky few, the "in" crowd who gets whatever they want and everyone else who has to just sigh and resign themselves to taking what life is willing to give. The idea that I have any power, any say in what I get is a relatively new idea for me that I am still having a hard time believing, due to the evidence that even if I worked hard I wouldn't be good enough to get what I want. I protest because I feel powerless and when you are powerless, protesting is all you can do. And I despise the fact that I protest, because protesting is usually a trait of the weak - the strong get what they want and therefore have nothing to protest. The point of this thread was that things that happened in my childhood and teenage years might have set me down a losing path that is still screwing me up, that if things had gone differently, I might have been different. Some days I feel empowered, some days I don't.
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Paraiyar
Guest
TheSkaFish said:
If working a minimum wage job is an environment of failure, frustration and despair then what does that make living at home whilst unemployed?
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Paraiyar
Guest
For what?
TheSkaFish
Jedi Guardian
Paraiyar said:
I don't only live at home for financial reasons.
The job thing is kind of a separate issue anyway. I made this thread to try to find out why I don't feel like an empowered actor in the first place.
reynard_muldrake
Well-known member
Moving away from the employment issues... Ska, you mentioned a desire to write fiction before. Would you be willing to consider glancing at some creative writing manuals or how-tos? Maybe take some kind of class if the ability presents itself?
kamya
Well-known member
You have a go to excuse for everything it seems. And the excuses don't even line up with each other. You contradict yourself multiple times just in that one single reply post to rainbows.
You don't feel like an empowered actor because you don't do anything. Those feelings of empowerment don't manifest out of thin air. You have to "work hard" and start doing things. Doesn't have to be the job. Make small goals and work at them and accomplish them. It will snowball from there.
If you end up a loser for life it will only be because you refuse to stop thinking and acting like one. It has nothing to do with skills and abilities or "intellect". It is your attitude and mindset that makes you a loser.
You don't feel like an empowered actor because you don't do anything. Those feelings of empowerment don't manifest out of thin air. You have to "work hard" and start doing things. Doesn't have to be the job. Make small goals and work at them and accomplish them. It will snowball from there.
If you end up a loser for life it will only be because you refuse to stop thinking and acting like one. It has nothing to do with skills and abilities or "intellect". It is your attitude and mindset that makes you a loser.
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Paraiyar
Guest
kamya said:
This seems to be the crux of the issue as far as I can see.
VanillaCreme
Well-known member
kamya said:
Thank you.
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Paraiyar
Guest
TheSkaFish said:
They aren't seperate issues. You might not like this but I can tell from other things I've seen you post on this forum that the unemployment issue is playing a massive role in fueling the feeling of disempowerment. Like Kamya says, the feeling of empowerment comes from doing things, not the reverse. You've been on this forum for three years and it on reading back on your posts it kind of seems like nothing much has changed. I really think if you made finding employment and moving out your two sole objectives then you'd start to feel some of the empowerment that you're lacking.
lifestream
Well-known member
Hey Ska.
You do whatever you feel you need to do. Never allow anyone to project their own insecurities onto you.
You do whatever you feel you need to do. Never allow anyone to project their own insecurities onto you.
TheSkaFish
Jedi Guardian
kamya said:
I don't know. Because of the way I keep falling short of getting what I want, I have a hard time telling the difference between negative things I've conditioned myself to believe and held for so long that they appear to be real constraints, and actual limitations. That's kind of what I was doing with this thread, trying to find out where this negative self-perception came from and undoing it.
kamya said:
It's not quite that exactly. I don't feel like an empowered actor because I've never been good enough to succeed, regardless of what I do or don't do. Factually, I know that if I don't do anything I won't get anything. But at the same time, because of my track record, I don't see myself succeeding no matter what, so I lose whatever motivation I have to do anything. I start to feel like positive thinking is just wishful thinking, and that I'm just setting myself up for another fall.
What you are saying makes logical sense, that if I make small goals, work on them, and accomplish them, I will get better at whatever those things might be. I have seen this firsthand. However, I always stop because I think that I won't get beyond the small improvements, so to continue is only teasing myself.
kamya said:
That's another thing I've always been confused about and why I have a hard time having a positive attitude. There are lots of people who have a positive attitude and are nice people, but still don't have anything and aren't particularly skilled at anything, at least nothing extraordinary. They work hard, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. They seem stuck at the bottom of every area of life. I've always wondered why, and have only ever been able to conclude that it must be some fundamental lack of ability, some natural limit.
I don't mean to be argumentative. But my consistent failure makes it hard for me to think anything I do will amount to much, because it hasn't yet.
VanillaCreme
Well-known member
TheSkaFish said:
So you stop before you even get anywhere. It's like boiling water for pasta, but you never put pasta in the water because you think you can't cook it. You never put the pasta in the water, you'll never cook it, regardless of whether or not you can cook it or not. You won't even try.
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