“And who am I after that?”

Faced with problems, obstacles, and setbacks, many of us ask ourselves the question that seems to be sorely needed in such situations: “And who am I after that?” It is of fundamental importance that we ask ourselves who and what I am, and not “what am I doing?”. In other words, instead of understanding what is happening, we begin to evaluate (that is, not the process or phenomenon, but the quality of this process or phenomenon). But I am more and more inclined to believe that self-esteem (the definition of the “quality” of oneself) would be good to learn to throw away. Generally.

“But what about without her?! – the one whose life is built on claims will be alarmed. “Where do you get incentives for development and self-improvement?”

And they – development and self-improvement – are also not needed without a specific task. And the task of “to become better” is no good, it is of no use, only tension, anxiety and shame.

The universe doesn’t care if we’re good or bad. She doesn’t hand out whips or candy. They are handed out by people – in accordance with their interests, not ours, because only we ourselves can take care of our interests … “Good boy” – and we are happy simply because someone considers us “good”. True, the meaning of this phrase, the word “good” is completely incomprehensible. Most often it is “convenient”, “meeting expectations”, and so on. In these infantile definitions of a person, “good / bad”, there is no specificity, there are no points of growth. These are freeze-frames of someone else’s perception, and that’s it. “I think I’m a bad person”: it remains only to kill and suffer. But the Universe doesn’t care, it lives somehow on its own, and it doesn’t care what we are. She manages to deal with us without any of that self-important bullshit. Other people, by the way, also do not care whether we are “good” or “bad”. They care about what we do and feel towards them. Not abstract matter.

Defining oneself as “loser”, “freak”, “great guy” and so on fixes some “result”, some stable state, which is actually a subjective illusion. What does “loser” mean? The one who has a lot of failures? Or the one who did not achieve the goal? So is he “generally a failure” or “a failure in this business”? Does this diligent search for self-evaluative labels make any sense at all? It has, if we proceed from the idea that a person is something complete and integral, it remains only to stick a label with the name – and to the museum. “It calms me down – it’s immediately clear who I am … And somehow it becomes easier, because there is clarity and there is no need to do something for a while, you can just worry,” – this is how I once answered the question: “Why Is it so important for you to find out what your psychological diagnosis is?” By the way, excessive enthusiasm for personality typologies, the desire to find out “one’s own type of personality” – hence, it gives certainty and completeness, creates a freeze frame from the tape of life and fixes it on it. Braking or blocking the process of natural interaction with the environment.

It is important not to confuse self-esteem and self-identification. “I am a psychologist” is a professional self-identification, that is, attributing oneself to some real-life phenomenon, “I am a good or bad psychologist” is a self-assessment, that is, a definition of the quality of a particular phenomenon (in this case, oneself as a psychologist). Without identity, we turn into a “tumbleweed” that has no support in this vast world, without self-esteem – into people capable of developing in any, even the most difficult and painful, situation.

If we proceed from the idea that we are not complete beings, but developing throughout our lives, then the meaning of self-esteem disappears and the characteristics of the process become important, and not the assessment of its quality. “I am a photographer” is a professional self-identification. Clear and clear. “I am a photographer who takes pictures that I like myself” is also understandable. And it’s clear: “I’m a photographer who takes pictures that appeal to a wide range of people.” You can add more and more aspects, in accordance with the logic of the current moment or period of time, for example: “I am a photographer who takes photos of nature, recognized by professional photographers.” And now: what is a “good photographer?” What is it eaten with? “Am I a good speaker?” or “Did I manage to convey my thoughts to the listeners?” – what do you prefer?

“I am a worthless, useless person” … A complete figure, a complete image. But it has no life. “I feel lonely, I can’t be needed by other people” – there is a process, an action and the reality of a fluid present … Considering yourself as a process, it is important to distinguish between yourself and your actions. “I do this and that and I feel bad about it” instead of “I do bad things and that’s why I’m a bad person.” In the second case, the experience due to certain events/actions is aggravated by the experience due to one’s own insignificance/wrongness and leaves little energy to cope with these events/consequences of actions.

Of course, this is not a panacea and not a way to salvation. It’s just a step towards regaining sensitivity to the flow of life, in which “what is happening, what I feel and what I do” is more important than “what / who am I after all this?” As Vladimir Levy said, it is better to send self-esteem to self-service.