You are in a trap. You know only one way out. That way does not offer you freedom. Taking any action will not solve your problem, you will only find yourself more entangled. What should you do??
Surely you all have experienced the frustration and intrigue created by a chinese finger trap. There is no equal, it's beauty is in it's simplicity and functionality. Struggle and you will be trapped forever, let go and you will find freedom easily.
Maybe this simple toy is much more than we have led ourselves to believe; maybe it is a lesson for us all even in these modern times.
Look at our society. We are surrounded by endless struggle. Day in and day out we mistreat ourselves, over caffeinated and over consuming, we mistreat others with our rudeness, justifying our actions by our own self imposed schedules. Where is the sanity in this? We tell ourselves that we are investing in our future: waiting for a day when we are rich enough, successful enough ... enough of enough!
The human mind, in all of it's complexities, has some rather simple components. Understand these and you will understand the modern plight.
Our brains, nervous systems endocrine systems (that's where emotions are made) work together to help us make decisions and interact with the world around us. One important "sub-system" is our dopamine system, or the reward pathway. When we do something that we like (aka something that is conducive to our survival) our brain releases dopamine.
Imagine a scenario : it's like a bajillion years ago and you're a caveman. Actually, imagine you are a lineage of caveman that fuck, reproduce die and extend their genetic code over time. You find yourself in an environment and have no idea how to survive. You start eating random things, some kill you (or individual units of you) and some cause you to survive. The "units" (it's weird I know, talking about human beings as units but it's fucking evolution) that are lucky and eat the good berries survive, fuck and reproduce. Over time (theoretically) maybe they begin to derive satisfaction from eating the good berries ... this is were the dopamine response comes into play.
If you've never read about Pavlov and his salivating dogs do it ... do it now.
He proved that he could train animals (remember folks we are animals too) to respond to certain stimuli. In his experiment he trained dogs to salivate when a bell rings. Every time he rang a bell he would give the dog a treat. Then, after a lot of practice he stopped giving the dogs the treat ... he would ring the bell and they would come running! Excited for their meal. The thing was, after enough practice he didn't need the treats anymore: their brains had associated the two stimuli (bell = food) and they would begin salivating as soon as they heard the noise. He could control their fuckng metabolic functions with a bell.
Now take a moment ... who is pavloving you in life? What about the instagram notifications? Ring a bell?? Aha! I see the clarity seeping into your consciousness, drowsing it with awareness and slowly bringing you back to life! You are, have been or probably will be addicted to social media in some form or another. These companies, and the people behind them, understand psychology very ... very well. They have created applications purely to be addictive. Why? Well that's a completely different conversation but if you are interested may I point you in the direction of Big Data. The byproduct is this. You, you beautiful, complex, unique and magical human being, have chosen (in some way) to walk around with a computer in your pocket (or hand) for the better part of the day. If you are like mosts, you have notifications turned on and you are receiving "stimuli" (think bells people, bells!) from these companies. Nothing even has to happen, as I'm sure you've seen on facebook, they will create reasons to notify you ... they'er training you folks. Every 17 and a half minutes you get pinged, your awareness disrupted and once more (if you're on IG or a similar platform) you spend a moment, or a few, looking at people, places and things that are (on average) more beautiful than you or the things that you have.
What does this have to do with self love? Let me explain. We all have a pseudo definition of who we should be : how we should act, how we should look and dress, the standard of living that is acceptable (what is poor, what is rich). These definitions are fluid and are the product of all of the information and experiences that we have. Social media, for the most part is "curated reality", or an expression of reality that is greater than. It has been carefully selected for, often edited and does not represent "true reality" as we know it.
As we continue to saturate our mental space with this modified reality, or sense of normality begins to shift towards this "falsified reality" . We begin to believe that everyone looks like a swimsuit model, everyone has a 6 pack and to drive anything less than a bugatti means we are poor.
In essence, the version of "us" that we view as acceptable or desirable begins to shift to meet this version of the world (our social media world that is). Our true selves begin to fall shorter and shorter, further away from this idealized mean and the by product, in one way or another is some form of self loathing, the absence of self acceptance.
How do we change this? Ha! Check out the title page, I've got a few chapters on it. Those furious and ansty enough to skip ahead please do, the concepts are rather simple. I do recommend reading the rest of the book, but that ultimately will be your decision. (has my recommending you to read the book impacted your desire to read the book? Are you less likely to read it now that I have offered this suggestion or more likely? Fuck! I'm tripping myself out now ... phew.)
Ultimately, the things to remember are : the things we put into our mind (aka where we place our attention) become the building blocks of our reality. If you eat nothing but refined sugar you might get fat. If you want to get healthy, it's going to take a good diet (maybe get off social for a while or at least become intentional about your usage) as well as some exercise (start adding things into your "mental set" that are conducive towards your well being).
You choose how you perceive your reality. As a part of reality, you choose how you perceive yourself. If you want to, you can view yourself as ugly and incompetent ... you can also view yourself as beautiful and capable. The choice is yours. It will take practice, but the reward is immeasurable. Trust me or not ... if you do, I think you may enjoy what you find.