No Nonsense Ways To Accept Yourself The Way You Are!
"10001 lousy ways to get everything under the sun!"
"200 lousy tips to get laid and be happy about it!"
"24 power pack sessions to Change your sorry life for the better
from Ed Kazinsk-
The- let- me -help-you-although- I-can't -help- myself- guru!"
You have heard them, you have seen them! Book stores, magazine
shelves are full of self help books and manuals, videos and
tapes. Even magazines such as the likes of Cosmo are full of
with such over zealous titles.
If this isn't enough; your In box gets filled with messages
like:
"Get a bigger ^^ in less than 29 days"
"Become the man/woman you have always wanted"
"Become the woman every guy desires"
"For stronger erections, use %^&&"
Uhn Uhn! I see yourself shrugging your shoulder. Go on and say
that you don't find this crap relevant because you happen to be
really sure of yourself! Think again. How many beauty products
does your dressing table hold? What shampoo are you using and
how many have you changed so far? Go on count those bottles on
your dressing table, that come in all sizes, shapes and colors;
yellow, blue, green, teal and what not and ask yourself: "Where
are the lustrous locks, where is the rosy complexion, where is
the charisma and above all where is the guy?"
The self help books, articles, manuals, beauty aids, cosmetics
and the enhancement products are there; because they have a
market, they address a hidden need of people. There are people
who actually believe in all this crap and buy them religiously.
All these books, tapes and courses promise you the world by
virtue of following steps ,tactics and products. They promise to
super size your member, your bank account and your self esteem.
They play upon people's desperation with their existing
situation, their dissatisfaction with themselves and who they
really are.
Do these self help really work, do they deliver what they
promise? What about the results and their reliability? Even if
they work, it is only to a certain minimal and negligible
extent. They don't work because they are concerned with the
‘look good' factor rather than the ‘feel good'
factor and not the other way around. You are supposed to improve
largely to become like others and to impress them. You are not
trying to improve yourself with your own satisfaction. If cure
and confidence was supposed to come in a pint sized green
bottle, then we would all have become perfect physically and
emotionally.
If the changing of the quintessential self could work so
perfectly then all of these self-help gurus and coaches, must
have been leading perfect lives and would not be so desperately
after our money. A few days back, I chanced upon buying a book
called "A Guide To Essential Herbs And A Healthy Life Style".
The author claimed that he had been using herbs in practically
every form since his teen years. Now isn't some one who has been
using herbs since ages supposed to look really healthy and
robust, defying the ravages of time? But that wasn't the case
with the author. His picture looked like any average Joe's with
a double chin, wrinkles and huge bags under the eyes. If before
I had the resolve to drink broccoli juice because I wanted to
look younger than my almost 27 years; the author's picture was a
big turn off.
What these self help books, articles, beauty aids really do is
that they imbibe and reinforce in us a feeling of discontent
with who we really are and what we actually have. "50 pounds
lighter, heavier, younger, bigger, richer, sexier, sleeker and
what not." Better, better and better than what we are, who we
are. They mislead us into believing that we can change just
about anything about ourselves that we want.
What is ‘self'? Self is the core, essence of who we are.
Can you really change and alter the ‘core', the
‘center'? Can you change it successfully and permanently
and be actually happy with it? As human beings, we need more to
evolve and not to merely improve. Evolution firstly requires us
to be accept who we are and to learn to love ourselves for that.
The quest for self-perfection has nothing to do with
‘Self' and our own satisfaction. Ironically enough it has
everything to do with society and norm, their demands to make
you force fit in to the pattern of mediocrity.
Our society has a malaise of perfection, it conditions in us a
dissatisfaction with what we have and a blind craving for
whatever we don't have. While we are growing up, we are made to
realize that we are less than perfect in one way or the other.
It usually starts with sibling comparison. "Why can't you be
like your brother/cousin/ so and so" , or that column in your
report card marked with red that says: ‘Improvement is
required/ Can do better". Mothers would openly deplore their
daughters' lack in the looks department. From the quest to
better grades, the competition turns towards landing a better
job, bigger car, house and better looking spouse. Aren't Parents
supposed to love you unconditionally, to accept you what you
are?
Thus initially our well-meaning parents perch us on the
treadmill of perfection and we take it from there onwards.
Spouses specially women do the perfect job of nagging their
husbands into doing better , becoming some one else. Although it
is the ‘personality' or the ‘self' of the spouse
that they fall in love with and not the potential of change or
flexibility. Thus on all fronts and being pressurized from all
directions; we struggle to improve, to escape from what we are!
We struggle to get accepted, become better adopted to society's
standards and in other words become another ‘stereotype'.
We always want to become someone else, fit into some standard
defined by the society. And society keeps on raising the bar,
placing it higher and higher. In the quest to ‘become'
someone else, we become ‘something else'. It is so because
the process of change and improvement is also one that of
alienation; from the ‘core' the ‘self'. In the
pursuit off improvement, we often get estranged from who we
really are. In our obsession with ‘I have to' ‘I
want' ‘ I need to'; we have forgotten what it is like to
simply be ‘I am'.
Thus ‘self improvement' in actuality is merely a negation
of ‘self' and ‘Self' needs affirmation and not
negation, if we ever need to find happiness and contentment. .
Others would still criticize your physical features, you ideas,
ideals and attitude towards life, but it doesn't matter. So put
away that self-help manual. Tear a page out of the book, make an
airplane with it let it fly. This time when you look at the
mirror; instead of deploring your lack of a bigger bust, give
yourself a big hug for who you really are and what you actually
have.