We think we know ourselves.
We don’t
One of the most interesting psychological concepts to me is the “self image”.
The idea that we have of ourselves, concerning what we think we can do, how we “stack up with others” and overall, that might define what we will do with our lives.
As science can tell you, we are not sure of anything.
We just have a huuuuuuge degree of certainty.
If you go down the scale of “scientific disciplines” you’ll find that psychology is one of the most eluding.
In fact, the standard psychological α is .05
Our psychological estimates are “almost true” in 95% of the cases.
Obviously the matter is even more complex as standard deviation, especially for psychology, is so complex and might bring such different results that trying to be “statistical” isn’t that easy.
Guess what?
Same goes for your estimate of yourself.
You simply don’t know shit.
Period
Anyway what I want to talk about is “Chocking”, the act of getting limp, those moments in which you had to do something and you just couldn’t.
In truth you actually could have done that, and maybe even more.
But what happened was that you didn’t.
And now your brain needs to tell you a story, just to keep you sane.
Hence we say: I can’t do it, I’m afraid.
Which is bullshit.
It’s a lie
And it will get worse, if you nourish that lie with lazyness.
In this culture, it seems to me that we love fear.
In both ways.
We love being challenged, and we love to run away.
Most of us do both of those to different degrees based on pretty much previous experiences along with a tad bit of the lies that we told ourselves.
Even people that think they’re the shit, are lying.
It’s not like just the “sad people” are the one lying.
Everyone does it.
It’s just that those guys that think they are the shit believe something that sometimes makes them feel like the shit. And then they just blindly ignore any other evidence.
So they are the shit, to themselves.
Let’s get back to chocking, and let me tell you what I think differentiates a good presenter/entertainer from a bad one.
Obviously there’s levels also in the “high tier” but let’s just make a broad statement (as always).
So, a guy might be an awesome writer, but he can’t talk to the crowd.
Why?
Because he’s lying to himself and believes that lie.
Another guy sucks at thinking, he just mumbles shit, yet he lies to himself that whatever he does is fun.
So he’ll go on the stage and rock it, and the performance might suck, overall, but will surely be better than the one put out from the shy guy (unless the shy guy is some sort of theatrical crutch)
Here’s my point:
Don’t let empty space make it so that you feel like shit.
Just fill that space with yourself, even if you think you suck, because you don’t.
Nothing sucks.