Did you laugh at that title? It’s funny, right? The thought that beatings could actually improve your outlook on life seems ridiculous.
Well, if it’s so funny, why do we do it to ourselves?
Let’s see if you recognize the following situation:
You’re in a rush. You are out the door before you realize that you don’t have your keys. You run back into the house to grab them. They’re right by the door, where you left them. You run out through the door back to your car. You’re driving, driving, driving. You are minutes away from your place of work when you realize that you have forgotten your lunch at home. All of that sandwichy deliciousness is left to become warm on the kitchen counter. It is not likely that it will be any good come dinnertime, and it certainly isn’t doing you any good being left at home.
So, what is your first reaction to the above scenario? What if that were you, leaving your lunch, in this situation? Would you say, oh, fiddlesticks! I will just have to eat out today or Well, I guess I will just have to make leftovers for dinner tonight–leftovers from lunch! And then you giggle and titter behind your hand like a schoolgirl.
Or…do you do what I do: #@$%* I FORGOT MY LUNCH. I AM AN IDIOT. I AM THE WORLD’S WORST, AND I DESERVE TO STARVE FOR THIS.
Yeah. There’s basically two people in this world, as you can see. But unfortunately, if you are the second person, you’re probably not getting the results you want from yourself. Why’s that, you wonder? Why, after the first hundred times that you forgot your lunch at home, do you think that yelling at yourself is going to help you remember? Emotional stress = increased memory, perhaps?
Disregarding any pseudo-scientific explanation your brain tells itself, the answer is it’s just not. The most it is going to do is make you feel bad (and most likely hungry).
And there are millions of people who do this. Who don’t think they’re good enough, who think they need to be perfect, who are yelling at themselves right now.
But the thing that they don’t tell you about lies is that if you say them often enough, and loud enough, they become the truth. You become the stupid idiot who deserves to starve for whatever small crime you “committed” against the world when you tell yourself it is true, even when it is not.
The short and long of it is that you shouldn’t beat yourself up so much. The world will only be too happy to do that for you, if you let it. Don’t think you are saving yourself by beating everyone else to the (mental) punch.
Bailey Dailey 