I've been thinking. Like you do.
There are many points in life where I wish I wasn't insecure. I wish I could just have the confidence to do things or say things without worrying about what people are going to think of me, or being terrified of failure. I wish I could stop bitching at myself whenever I did, like, anything.
But then, where would I be without my insecurity?
I would not be the person I am without constant self-criticism and the all-empowering desire to make people like me. For better or for worse? I don't know. But I don't think a totally self-assured me would necessarily be a good thing.
It goes without saying that everyone needs at least some capacity to step back and assess whatever it is they are doing. And it wouldn't be a full assessment if there wasn't at least one really negative part of you which didn't like anything it saw. Think of it as a group discussion; there's always one really irritating person who insists on being negative about every suggestion, but if s/he didn't fill that role, a lot of problems would go unidentified.
We also need to be accountable to the wider human population. Virtually everything we do is going to affect other people in some way, and we need some kind of incentive to minimalise negative impact while enhancing positive impact as much as we can. If we truly, honestly, had no concern for the opinions of others, how would we know when we were spreading pain amongst our peers? How would we be motivated to stop?
Insecurity can go too far. It's important to stop our self-criticism from stopping us doing the things that need to be done, or preventing us from seeing the good side of ourselves. But we need to be aware of our faults as much as our virtues. We need to despise ourselves as much as we need to love ourselves.
So that's my potentially controversial conclusion of the week, anyway.
There are many points in life where I wish I wasn't insecure. I wish I could just have the confidence to do things or say things without worrying about what people are going to think of me, or being terrified of failure. I wish I could stop bitching at myself whenever I did, like, anything.
But then, where would I be without my insecurity?
I would not be the person I am without constant self-criticism and the all-empowering desire to make people like me. For better or for worse? I don't know. But I don't think a totally self-assured me would necessarily be a good thing.
It goes without saying that everyone needs at least some capacity to step back and assess whatever it is they are doing. And it wouldn't be a full assessment if there wasn't at least one really negative part of you which didn't like anything it saw. Think of it as a group discussion; there's always one really irritating person who insists on being negative about every suggestion, but if s/he didn't fill that role, a lot of problems would go unidentified.
We also need to be accountable to the wider human population. Virtually everything we do is going to affect other people in some way, and we need some kind of incentive to minimalise negative impact while enhancing positive impact as much as we can. If we truly, honestly, had no concern for the opinions of others, how would we know when we were spreading pain amongst our peers? How would we be motivated to stop?
Insecurity can go too far. It's important to stop our self-criticism from stopping us doing the things that need to be done, or preventing us from seeing the good side of ourselves. But we need to be aware of our faults as much as our virtues. We need to despise ourselves as much as we need to love ourselves.
So that's my potentially controversial conclusion of the week, anyway.
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