# The Cure For Involuntary Self-Deprecation



## OmarFW (Apr 8, 2010)

(This is an older blog from facebook but I will put it up here too)

"Involuntary&#65279; self-deprecation" meaning the act of putting down ones self because of an inability to perform up to standards given to you by somebody else.

Many many times I have put myself down in life simply because I couldn't fulfill the goals that other people put in front of me.

Goals that the average person takes and makes seem easy, and yet when I attempt them they seem impossible, and sometimes are for me.

So of course I grew to believe that there was something wrong with me.

And who wouldn't in my position?

When I put my uttermost dedicated effort into something only to see it end up failing like all the other times, I am bound to wonder what I'm doing wrong.

I sunk so far into it that it didn't occur to me for the longest time that maybe my opinion about myself didn't have to be influenced and controlled by the opinions and standards of others.

Maybe my definition of success doesn't have to be dictated by people who are clearly different than me.

I realize that this is the source of many peoples insecurities.

They value the opinions of other people before their own.

They have convinced themself that those opinions take first priority before their own and that is just how the world works to them.

And yet they don't ever bother to question if maybe that viewpoint, the basis of reliance on external opinions, is in itself brainwashed into them by the influence of other people.

That it is the product of insecure behavior and has become a sort of religion to the society of people who use this kind of mental drug to cope in life and have completely abandoned the need for their own opinions about themselves.

To challenge that need for external input is to challenge their reliance on it and their social religion that they are so faithful to.

To challenge that is to force people to be aware of the fact that they hate themselves in at least some kind of way on the inside so they try to keep themselves distracted from what they think about themselves by paying attention to what other people think about them.

I only compare it to a religion because people will defend their viewpoint on the way they cope in their life much like the way a religious person will defend their belief that god exists.

The only "problem" with me is that I wasn't able to distract myself that way entirely.

I have never fit into the world, and even though I have identified which groups of people I do belong to, it does not change the fact that those groups are socially ignored and my talents are seen as unnecessary or optional by the majority of people in this world.

Even though I do have a place in this world, our society has deemed that place of mine as irrational and unimportant.

If a man makes a lot of money because he is good at doing that, he is put on a pedastal and seen as powerful and more successful.

If a man doesn't value money and doesn't make an attempt to obtain it, he is seen as a fool who won't go anywhere in life.

I do not value money anymore than I value a picture of a dollar bill I make with my printer.

They are both the same, except one can be traded for other things.

I have beat myself up countless times in the past for realizing things that the people around me seem to have known all along, but it's happened so many times that I've just decided that it's going to happen in the future and there isn't much I can do about it because in the end, even if I do realize it before the sh** hits the fan, I can't just change myself and abandon who I am.

There are some degrees of change humans can make to themselves overtime, and there are some aspects a person cannot change.

We are not all the same. We do not all end up thinking the same way.

And yet when I look at things overall; the people around me, young and old, have yet to realize some of the stupidest simplest crap that I have known since I was very little.

So I came to realize a few years ago that our society is bias against people like me and my intelligences, and thinks that what I and people like myself have to offer doesn't matter.

From a typological standpoint, I am an INFP living in a STJ dominated world.

So yes, there are plenty of ways in which I fail at life simply because I am who I am.

Especially when it comes to fitting in with our society and how we socialize and what jobs I can do.

But am I really failing at my life or am I failing at the life my society is trying to make me live?

If the only reason why these "faults" in me exist is because my society is telling me to be somebody I am not and because I can't force myself to be motivated by money and possessions, then it's not my fault.

It's their fault for not realizing that there is more than one way to live a life.

This is not the product of me being ignorant and stubborn, because I have taken very little actual action in shaping my life so far.

I have always first and foremost gone along with what people have told me about how to live my life.

By regular standards, should I not have been successful if I did everything by the book?

But now I have stopped trying to lead the life of someone else.

There are no losers and winners in life.

There are only people who try and people who give up.

Only when you take someone different than you and apply their methods to your own life can you judge whether or not they will succeed or fail.

I am simply a victim of the majority of people in our society looking at my methods and claiming that I would not succeed in THEIR life.

Well that's just fine and dandy, it's a good thing I'm not living your life then isn't it?


----------



## BlissfulDreams (Dec 25, 2009)

Thanks for writing this. This is great. I'm sure that many people can relate to what you said here, myself included. It's like you wrote this about me and where I'm at right now.


----------



## Danse Macabre (Oct 30, 2009)

That's just how I feel too.... it took me so long to realise that what society tells me I have to be isn't what is best for me!


----------



## Zic (Dec 30, 2009)

Thanks, that's a great post.


----------



## OmarFW (Apr 8, 2010)

thanks :tongue:


----------



## Nostalgic (Jul 20, 2010)

This is so well said. I really enjoy hearing your opinions on things :happy:


----------



## beanz (Sep 19, 2010)

great post.....

society is overrated


----------

