I don't think everyone will accept "all of me"
Earlier I had an epiphany about self-image and stuff. The stuff I'm saying isn't necessarily true, nor is anything set in stone and what I believe. This is based on my experiences and understanding, so I'd appreciate your thoughts and opinions on this, that way I could learn more and whatnot. Different perspectives are good I think.
The epiphany(ies):
There's this belief that your true self is hidden beneath your flaws.
But what counts as a flaw?
Is a flaw whatever behavioral patterns you have that harm others physically or emotionally?
And is a strength something that benefits others, and what they like about you?
examples:
Flaw - bullying, being obnoxious
Strength - helping others, being funny
To me it seems like flaws harm others and the community. It invokes negative emotions from others. They're bad. But strengths benefit others and the community, they uplift others, they make them like you. These are good.
In order to improve, you should phase out your negative aspects and enhance your good ones.
But what's considered 'negative' and 'positive' depends on the people you're with, and how they condition you to act, how they influence your self-image and self-esteem.
Your individual self seems to be formed from collective opinions. If you naturally tend to yell in people's ears you're weird and nobody will want to be around you. If you're considered ugly you won't attract a mate. It just happens. So you have to make up for that. You can stop yelling and apply makeup.
We need to submit to others' values in order for them to like us. This might be tied to the need to adapt & survive. This is also why people could have self-esteem issues and social anxiety, we evolved to feel like we're lacking in order to protect ourselves. The fear and shame may warn of us the danger of being cast out by others. I think these emotions have a similar cause to loneliness, which is another effect of being a social species. Loneliness is like a punishment for having no connections. People support one another, and we need to keep this support, probably. Anyways. Back in the tribal days, we probably threw people out who didn't belong or didn't benefit anyone in our tribe because they were a liability, or there wasn't enough benefit to have them around. For instance, if someone ate all the food but didn't hunt, they would just take all the food out of our hardworking tribesmen's mouths, and then the hard workers would be tired and reel in less food, which means less food for everyone, and so on.
So the people who didn't care about other's opinions and were unhelpful or unlikable were thrown out and died off. So the people in modern time evolved from the ones who adapted to their fellow tribes people (maybe because of fear) and weren't thrown out. So to this day, we feel anxiety and fear of being rejected to the degree of our lives being at stake, like we could be cast into the wild, easily discarded, and in danger of getting eaten by a mountain lion or something if we don't please others. And this fear probably manifests into how we feel hatred of the things we find reprehensible in others, too. We want to exclude these "bad people" and dehumanize them, and we can often jump to conclusions in assuming who's a "bad" guy and who's "good." Maybe it's safer and easier to stereotype someone than to actually be hurt by or waste one's time with them. I guess we do this stereotyping and hatred of bad people because we're afraid of seeing their evil traits in ourselves, or having the trait's malignant influence spread like a disease across our modern-day tribes. Excluding the bad people means we're not like them. And we want to protect those who are close to us, as well as ourselves, from them. We need to keep out anyone who could endanger us. But that's a simplified explanation for why we act this way and very likely isn't accurate because I'm not an expert on this. I don't research how our ancestors lived or neuroscience or psychology... I just don't want to spread misinformation, that's why I'm adding this disclaimer.
Moving on, people have different rules, and were conditioned to be good in different ways from other people. They have different super egos based on what their parents, peers, or others told them they should act and how they should not act. The way someone was conditioned also changes how they condition others.
For instance... Bob thinks it's good to be ambitious. Devin does not.
So Bob, remembering the standards enforced by his parents who believed hard work and big ideas would take them places, teaches his children they should be ambitious and hardworking in order to survive. It's a desirable trait to him and his kids.
But Devin thinks ambition causes others too many issues, and that his quality of life is fixed. It's better to be complacent and let others who were born with money and opportunities make the decisions. So he teaches his kids that. And his children learn to work with what they have.
What's considered a flaw in one place might not be considered a flaw in another.
And I thought this could have to do with why people are different. If everyone was conditioned the same way, we would probably be very similar.
And what you have to change about yourself depends on who you're with and where you're at too.
The people who surround you and criticize you (or compliment you) may move you toward acting in a way that's socially acceptable. They don't want you to be a nuisance or annoying because it'll harm the whole crew, and people have different ideas of what makes someone either of those things.
You can think of it like this: we're all human and we're aboard a ship. Sometimes the weather and condition can get pretty sucky for everyone. Because of this, we can understand each other's struggles; we've all dealt with sea sickness and general maladies one can get from being in this boat. Mutual experiences and emotions can lead to compassion. But the daily struggles of being at sea can be rough, a constant grating thing which frays our patience. We've had it, and we don't want or need anyone to rock the boat and add more problems, fear, and uncertainty to our lives because it's hard enough living here.
So what is "all of me?"
All of me is how I naturally behave, my habits that I have developed over my entire life.
I considered the idea that personality is a series of habits.
Whatever behaviors you've repeatedly shown and been conditioned to have appears in your personality. So you need to continuously do something else, form another habit, in order to override these deeply ingrained personality habits. Like think differently, or try something new, and continue to do it.
But there's research saying a good chunk of personality depends on biological factors and life experiences (about 50/50), so take that with a grain of salt.
Identity seems more like vapor. Like I can wave my hands through mine. How I act depends on the situation and what people like about me, as well as past experiences, and what I choose in the present moment.
I thought about the idea of flaws and strengths being a social construct. Behaviors are just behaviors. Some behaviors of mine are seen as irritating or great or a mixture of those two.
Even then, I want to stop acting one way in order to improve myself. It's the journey of 'self-improvement...' forget your socially undesirable traits. Work on your empathy and compassion, get rid of your selfishness and strange masochistic desire to have something wrong with you.
When I think about it, it is really only you making a decision. You're the one moving your body to do something, you're forming the thoughts in your head (but intrusive thoughts are kind of a grey area).
How I feel about myself more often than not has to do with what other people think.
So the behaviors I show will be rejected or accepted. Then I will adjust them to other's standards in order to be the "best" me I can be and survive in society. Right?
"You can think of it like this: we're all human and we're aboard a ship. Sometimes the weather and condition can get pretty sucky for everyone. Because of this, we can understand each other's struggles; we've all dealt with sea sickness and general maladies one can get from being in this boat. Mutual experiences and emotions can lead to compassion. But the daily struggles of being at sea can be rough, a constant grating thing which frays our patience. We've had it, and we don't want or need anyone to rock the boat and add more problems, fear, and uncertainty to our lives because it's hard enough living here." i meant the patience fraying thing to be a reason why people easily criticize others, that's because they're in a bad mood from the daily strugglesconstant grating thing which frays our patience. We've had it, and we don't want or need anyone to rock the boat and add more problems, fear, and uncertainty to our lives because it's hard enough living here."
i meant the patience fraying thing to be a reason why people easily criticize others, that's because they're in a bad mood from the daily struggles
also the part where it talks about "strange masochistic desire" is about me