What if your self-image is a matter of decision?
Quietly, behind the shell of daily life, behind the particular deliberations, a mega-deliberation is hiding. A question so large that until we resolve it, our decision muscle will remain permanently withered and slack.
The deliberation about the self.
Look, I am not naive. I am well aware that an enormous portion of the population goes to sleep night after night feeling that they are not all right, that they have disappointed, and worse — that they are not worthy.
That is painful, that is sad, but I am talking here about a different question.
Is your self-image — that internal ledger which permanently reflects to you how good or bad you are — capable of being changed or repaired by a decision?
I am not talking about deranged new-age self-love. Self-love is as one-dimensional and flat as self-hatred. Tying crowns to yourself artificially and without justification is self-deception, of the kind that never ends well.
I am talking about something else.
Forgive the drama, but I am talking about a decision that changes a life.
I stand behind the following.
You need to decide that your self-image, from here onwards, will never be determined by other people and external factors, but solely by you.
That does not mean you should be pleased with yourself. It does not mean you are immune to criticism. It does not mean you cannot make an idiot of yourself.
But the decision whether to condemn or to commend yourself is yours alone.
Note carefully what this actually asks. It does not ask you to stop caring what people think, which is impossible and would make you a worse person. It asks you to stop outsourcing the verdict.
Take the information. Weigh it. And then rule on yourself yourself, which is a job nobody else was ever qualified to do, and which most people spend their entire lives subcontracting.