Self Pity and other worthless emotions.

by Big Dog 8 Replies latest social entertainment

  • Big Dog
    Big Dog

    I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

    D.H. Lawrence

    I remember reading the above in one of my college literature classes and it really striking a chord with me about how useless and self destructive self pity is.

    Of all the things we can feel I believe that self-pity and guilt are the worst. What do you think are the most worthless emotions/feeling we can have?

  • kid-A
    kid-A

    I agree about self-pity. Self-pity is merely the consequence of irrational fear....fear to take the necessary actions to correct a situation.

    Guilt, on the other hand can serve an important 'self-corrective' mechanism, I believe there are certainly times in my life when feeling guilty about my actions served to negatively reinforce me from doing them again. The guilt, however, needs to be self-imposed by your own mind, and not based on irrational fears of divine punishment. I should only feel guilt if I have genuinely hurt a living, human being.

  • wanderlustguy
    wanderlustguy

    Just wanted to say I like reading your stuff lately.

    Self pity is a worthless emotion...right along with self doubt. It's hard to make real progress without confidence in your own decision making ability and perception.

    WLG

  • Ellie
    Ellie

    Self pity is useless yes but guilt sometimes can have an advantage, guilt can cause you to put something right, jealousy is another useless one in my opinion.

  • Big Dog
    Big Dog

    The way I look at guilt is if I have done something wrong I do my best to put it right, if I can't fix it I move on as there is nothing I can do about it and feeling guilty over it won't change a thing. I will learn from my mistake and try not to repeat it, but I won't engage in punishing myself with guilt.

  • jgnat
    jgnat

    Paranoia is another useless emotion. One of the best books I've ever read on this maintains that when we are completely focused on an activity, these useless emotions retreat.

    Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Paperback)by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  • joelbear
    joelbear

    i agree, i almost totally destroyed myself with self pity and paranoia.

    the good news is, that when you drop these practices, things start to improve around you almost immediately, friends, fun, experiences, opportunities. its incredible.

    i'm so happy

    yay

    won't you be happy too, pretty please.

  • Cygnus
    Cygnus

    I've been struggling with the feeling of helplessness. The palsy, wrist-drop and limited movement of my fingers has kept me from being able to work, to clean my house properly, I crashed my car doing 60 mph (I should NOT have been driving and right now I take a big risk when I go to the bank or a store on my bicycle), and I cannot do the things I love, such as play guitar or piano, or play golf. Just writing is a real challenge. I've never felt so helpless in all my life. But today I did a lot of cleaning, laundry, rearranging, and told myself "If you drop something just pick it back up and try again." So I actually got quite a bit accomplished today and feel good about it. And in one hour I have an appointment with an injury lawyer and I'm going to get another opinion on whether I have a chance filing a lawsuit for malpractice/negligence against the health care facilities that severed my radial nerves in both arms and killed my hands. (If you're wondering how I type, I hover my hands over the keyboard and drop them and hope my pointer fingers hit the right keys.....LOTS of typos have to get fixed.)

  • Crumpet
    Crumpet

    oh Ellie - smart girl beat me to it! jealousy - motiveless jealous is the most useless and destructive emotion i can think of personally. It has the reverse effect from what you want. The more you exhibit jealousy the more it drives a partner away from you.

    Maybe thats what happened with me and God. I couldn;t bear his jealousy so I left him.

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