fuji

Durr. I don't know how to respond to that. Duhhh. I'll say something that means nothing at all.

(parody!)

Sometimes I think the people who should most appreciate their own qualities as being something that others should laud are too critical of themselves to the point of giving the illusion of little self-worth. Therefore, their best qualities, being things to which they are accustomed, seem prerequisites to that elusive higher quality of "being interesting" or "something special".

So, some people, who I won't name, think poorly of themselves simply because they have not met or exceeded their extravagant expectations, though their own positions or lots-in-life, as it were, would be the envy of any average joe. They admit this to themselves, but prefer to be the envy of those who they would consider their peers, though for their great qualities, as with all people, their are qualities that they do not exceed in.

For the person who exceeds, sometimes exceeding is all that's acceptable - and since I would say, for the majority of the population (even if you limit the scope of that statement to the exceptional), exceeding at everything they would like to exceed in it hardly an option - or even a possible reality. This of course does not glide with their desires to exceed, and since they are forward thinkers and not backward thinkers, they are not willing to settle.

What this means that is that these people, who, again, I will not name though I know many as they are my peers, see their inability to exceed in certain areas, in spite of their exceptional talents in other fields which to them have become the baseline of acceptable behavior in their lives, becomes a shortcoming of their person. In their eyes, they have achieved a baseline in certain prerequisite traits, but have not exceeded at all -- and as soon as said person exceeds to a point, it becomes baseline and self-esteem doesn't improve.

Of course, this sets up said party for a major upset when the situation declines rather than improves, say when a new field is entered or a job is lost or a new school is attended, or any situation in which the environment that was once the backbone of the illusion we previously mentioned is destroyed or changed. In these situations, the person is set further back than they previously were, which means that their advancing nature not only failed to meet expectations, but actually fell short, hurting their self esteem even more.

So let's say there was a person who everybody thought had it great. Let's say it's a man who has the illusion of having women attracted to him. It's not an illusion, but as soon as the women in his "baseline" are attracted to him, he stops trying to achieve that level of attraction and then is only satisfied with MORE attractive women. Basically, he's never happy with what he has. This causes him to be depressed or to think he's unattractive.

Take the same situation and apply it to any person you know who likes to achieve. Say it's a person in school who strives for a 3.5 average. As soon as this type of person hits their 3.5 average, they think that that's the MINIMUM they should achieve, and if they don't do better, they're just mediocre.

Or, imagine it's a girl who the guys love, but she wants the hottest guys there are. She's depressed that she can't get them, though any other girl would kill to get as much action/attention as that girl gets.

It's a terrible curse to have, but I know too many people with it.

blow me!