When You Don’t Believe in Anything
You become what you tell yourself through repetition. This advice is psychologically true. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You believe something that influences how you act, and how you act determines the outcome, which is usually in accordance with your belief. Act like a leader, and they will eventually start treating you like one.
But it isn’t always so easy. Some days, it’s impossible to believe in yourself. Everything feels so heavy that moving one leg out of the room, attempting to socialise, or even thinking about engaging with people tires you out. Nothing makes sense, and you don’t even feel like putting in the effort.
You cannot live in the constant fear that what you believe will eventually happen because we are filled with contradictory opinions about ourselves. Some days, we want someone to remind us who we are. Acting strong isn’t so easy every day, especially when you know you don’t have the option to fall down.
For people who do not have the luxury to stay depressed or fail in life, who have to live with melancholy, this brooding silence cannot tolerate any noise. Not even the noise of self-belief. Everything looks bad, selfish, miserable. That’s the only way they can survive the next ordeal. This is how their body heals and resets.
Asking them to improve their self-belief sounds like bad advice once you consider that the misery itself is also part of the belief they cannot get rid of. Sometimes, you need acknowledgement from the world that your misery is unfounded. When the world makes you believe that it’s a pathetically selfish place to be in, you don’t feel like conquering such a world. Even if you succeed, what will you get?
And so, high self-belief loses its relevance. There is no point in believing in greatness when you don’t want to aim for it. You are what you believe, they say. But what if you don’t believe in anything? What if everything appears pointless, but you have to go on because stopping and giving up is a luxury you don’t have?