I have been observing something over the past couple of weeks. People in America apologize for absolutely everything! I have heard "I'm sorry" more times in the past two weeks now that I am paying attention to it, and I am apalled at what people are willing to apologize for. I bumped into someone's chair on the way to my seat and they apologized to me for their chair being in my way! WTF!
Another trend that I have observed is that people, in general, are more willing to create a vision of themselves as stupid, uninformed, or unprepared in other people's eyes as opposed to going into a situation with confidence and an air of knowing what is going on. I have asked people why they do this, and overwhelmingly people say that it is safer to go in apologetically, with the understanding that they do not understand what is going on, so that if their answer/assignment/presentation is bad, they can simply say "I told you so" and if it is good they get the satisfaction of hearing the opposite of what they espoused prior to the assignment/event. It is far more risky to go into something with confidence that you did a good job, because the only place to go is down from there. The best case scenario is confirmation that you did as well as you planned to do or perhaps a bit better.
In reading about different religions this is a trend that I suspect has seeped into our society from Christianity and other "people = unworthy" religions. Even Bill and Ted in their excellent adventure often stated that they were "not worthy." And often we receive exactly what we originally wanted as a result of admitting unworthiness. Students receive extra praise. People receive extra compliments ("I'm so fat" "No you're not, you're beautiful!"; "I'm not worthy of your love" "Of course you are!"). The religious receive forgiveness and mercy (just scan a hymnal or listen to your local Christian music station: "I am unworthy, you are so holy" and other versions pop up continuously.
Through my observations I have noticed that this can often turn into a contest about who is more unworthy. "I don't deserve you" "No I don't deserve you!" Seeking more praise or compliments can come through this as well. "I don't deserve this grade, I did so much worse" "You did fine!" "No I didn't, I can't sing, I was awful!" It's like people want to argue with you about how horrible/unintelligent/untalented/unworthy they are!!
I am almost convinced that this occurs because people are afraid and because people are lazy. When I say that people are afraid, I mean that people are afraid to be confident, to take responsibility for their own learning/performances/relationships/life and so it is safer to just have the attitude that you are going to fall on your face. Safer in that if you don't you can celebrate that moment and then go back to espousing your inabilities. To announce you are capable, knowledgable, intelligent, intuitive, or what have you is to set yourself up like bowling pins to be knocked down at your first mistake. The people that are afraid view picking themselves up from such a fall more difficult to deal with than just staying at the bottom of the barrel and seeing the sunshine once in awhile. They may be right that such a "knock down" would be harder to come back from, however I don't know if living your life in a shell of statements about how stupid/incapable/unprepared you are is the best way to approach life. Remember when your mom told you that if you held your face that long it would stay that way? How long will these people be able to say these things about themselves before it becomes their reality and the sun goes away for good?
When I say people are lazy, I am speaking to their inability to hold up their own self-esteem. Through their behavior and comments about themselves they are forcing the duty of complimenting and reassuring onto the people around them. As a result of this they receive all of their positive reinforcement from their environment and never have to learn how to view themselves as positive, capable, important, worthy human beings. We all have our bad days and we all enjoy positive attention from our surroundings. But what I have observed over the past few weeks is that people overwhelmingly live in a world in which they present themselves as unworthy and expect those people around them to expend the energy to convince them otherwise (whether or not that convincing is necessary depends on how long these people have been living the way I have described). This is, in my opinion, very lazy and irresponsible, and I have refused to respond to these people with what they expect/need.
Overall I am shocked at the lack of self-worth and self-esteem that seems to be running rampant in the professional people around me. How could they not be confident? How could they not be proud of their accomplishments? How could they not want to attempt to be as successful as possible and present themselves to their professors in such a way? I understand the need to grovel at professors' feet occasionally, but that doesn't make necessary playing the part of the idiot. Recognizing the intelligence and prominence of another person does not have to also include the lowering of one's self.
So I am making an effort to squash these behaviors in myself, because I think we all do this to some degree. I am also making an effort to not enable these behaviors in others, especially those individuals who are at my same level. The great danger is walking the fine line between offering encouragement when necessary, but avoiding enabling consistent destructive behaviors. This is a line I need to learn to walk.
We should all understand our own worth and protect our perception of it. It is extremely difficult to be confident but not cocky or conceited, knowledgable but not insufferable, intelligent without an air of superiority. People can be proud of themselves without bringing other people down. I'm still learning how, but I refuse to let go of the responsibility of taking care of my own self-esteem. I am worthy of what I have accomplished. I have worked hard for it. I won't let that go.
Everone is worthy of all life has to offer, and they are worthy of a high self-esteem. The other side of this coin is that people have to work to continue to be worthy, and an understanding of their own worth and abilities is essential to this process. All of this is very sociological, and I am learning more about how we shape our identities, self-esteem, and self-worth. What I do know is that I don't want to cripple myself by taking on the role of the whiner, and I won't cripple others by reinforcing their behavior.
