day 21: what's something you're working on believing that you deserve?
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My spirituality is entirely contingent on my spirits. If I'm up and hopeful, I'm making vision boards and gratitude lists and tarot spreads and searching Pinterest for charts on chakras and what planets rule what attributes. I believe that every time I see 444 (which is so incredibly often for the last eight years) I truly am on the right path in life. I charge crystals under a full moon and I repeat mantras with sage in hand until the whole house is cleansed. I am fascinated, earnestly trying to unlock the secrets of the Universe & answer all the questions. And it inspires me.
When I'm down bad, I am atheism personified. Everything came from nothing. Life is unfair and black + white and luck does not exist, nor does peace. There is no karma. Earth exists as a misfits' paradise where we're all misunderstood and hurting and sad and traumatized. I kind of just float through the days, spending time with the Depression Kitty and binge-watching Forensic Files.
Years ago I was venting to a therapist about the dichotomy of my precarious worth.
"How come when I make the vision board and I repeat the affirmations, nothing happens? Things don't seem to change."
Because you have to believe it, she said. And that turned everything on its head. In the throes of my dark episodes, I am relentless with myself. I could write six volumes on Bible-thin pages about how useless I am, how ugly I am, how annoying I am, how plain I am, how weak I am... No wonder why my spells don't work. The foundation of them are faulty.
What's something you're working on believing that you deserve? The things that bring ease and goodness and prosperity and equanimity. I want to believe I can live in comfort. Be loved by someone who I feel connected to. Forgive myself. A groovy aesthetic to decorate my room. Complete a degree or two and contribute to the mental health community. Maybe I deserve positivity just because I exist and I'm made of stardust. Those credentials are good enough.
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ALAIN DE BOTTON: Life used to be simpler. You just went down a certain path. There were three career options; now, it's one of a million. We're all the time aware of people who've used their brains in a certain way and hurray, it all, you know, went brilliantly right; and others who've crashed and failed miserably. So there's a frenetic atmosphere in modern society, particularly in the United States because this is the land of opportunity. And,you know, when I hear your politicians saying, you know, we want to build a United States where everyone, no matter where they come from, can get anywhere, I think two things. One, that's fantastic, fantastic, great. Two, it's got a nasty sting in the tail 'cause what happens if, in this land of opportunity, it doesn't go right for you? What happens?
By definition, not everybody can win the race. The United States is a society that believes in fairness at the beginning of the race. But then once the starting pistol goes, it's winner takes all. It's very frenetic to live in such a society. That said, you know, the United States rewards its winners like no other country on Earth. But in many ways, it punishes its losers. Now, that word is an American word - loser, you know. Pause. In the Middle Ages, in the United Kingdom, the word for somebody who was at the bottom of society was an unfortunate. Literally, somebody who, perhaps through no fault of their own, had failed because of the actions of fortune — the goddess of fortune — an unfortunate.
GUY RAZ: Wasn't their fault.
DE BOTTON: It wasn't their fault. Nowadays, in America, you're a winner, or you are a loser. Now, what is a loser? A loser is somebody who has failed according to the rules of the game that they have signed up to. In other words, we have made, in the United States, a meritocratic society where success is deserved, but failure is also deserved.
RAZ: So this is, like, a little bit depressing, right? I mean, this is— all this pressure and stuff, and I don't know. I mean, how do we end it? Like, how do we change this?
DE BOTTON: Look, the first thing is to recognize it and to treat ourselves with compassion. We are, on one level, an extremely privileged society, and so there's nothing to complain about — but yes, there is. The psychological pressures are enormous. We should be able to recognize it and — I don't mean this trivially — make jokes about it. What I mean by that is show a compassionate, tolerant regard for the pressures that we live under.
...So what I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them, that we are truly the authors of our own ambitions because it's bad enough not getting what you want; but it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want, and find out at the end of the journey that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along. So by all means, success— yes. But let's accept the strangeness of some of our ideas. Let's probe away at our notions of success. Let's make sure our ideas of success are truly our own.
TED Radio Hour: What's A Kinder Way To Frame Success? November 1, 2013
