I was thinking about a man I knew a long time ago. I've kept track of him and he seems to be living the life I've wanted for myself - enormously successful and moving in the very top circles in his field, a long and close marriage, children and, of course, tons of money.
Sometimes I've used him as a cudgel against myself. See what he has? What he's accomplished? Now look at your life - what have you done, how far have you gotten, you're a failure in every way. It's a voice that plays over and over again and I let myself be seduced by it even though I know that comparing someone's outsides to my insides is always a losing game.
It took me a long time to realize that voice is my version of self-pity. Its only purpose is to make me feel sorry for myself. Poor, poor me, look how pathetic I am. When that voice is on me, I can't shake an image of myself turning from the light as if I don't deserve its warmth. It's a self-perpetuating loop - the more I feel sorry for myself, the sorrier I feel for myself. And I think that is the purpose behind the purpose: as long as I submerge myself in that swamp of self-pity, I don't have to act. I can stay in the darkness, alone and despairing, and not take a risk or challenge myself to move forward or work hard to bring about change. Self-pity lets me off the hook.
Once I recognized this voice as self-pity I began to be able to work with it. Naming it gives me a way to step back from it, to see that it isn't something that's bigger than me. Yes, it's a huge ball but if I'm patient I can make it smaller and smaller, until it's small enough to put it in my pocket. I may carry it with me but it doesn't get in my way.
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