Getting back to the real you
In the summer someone told me over the phone (I’m going to keep things especially anonymous about this) about how she was planning to go back to being the real her. This meant she just wasn’t going to get with any guys for a long, long time once she was back at uni. She’d been burned by several men in her fresher year and she refused to go through all that crap again. She was going to be pure and distant and re-connect with the girl she believed she was deep down.
I told her what I know about the ‘true self’, the ‘real her’.
The ‘real’ you
There’s a plenty of talk and writing in self-help about finding yourself and getting back in touch with the real you. What such writing usually doesn’t acknowledge is what the ‘real’ you really is.
The ‘real’ you is thoughts and behaviors which are older than others, which people have commented most on and to which you’ve become emotionally attached. There’s nothing that makes these thoughts and behaviors more real or true than any others. They’re just more familiar. If ever you feel you need to get back to being the real you, you’re just talking about getting back to the old. There is no true you: there is no true self.
Not only this, but when you’re acting and thinking in different ways - they’re all equally real too. Mentalist Derren Brown and psychiatrist Oliver James both mention in their books how erroneous it is to claim that any side of someone’s personality is the ‘real’ self. It’s all equally real. If I act meek and uncertain of myself what makes that behavior any less real than my usual brash self-confidence? As long as the effects are there, nothing. I could go through massive personality changes but all of them would be valid - and through all of them I’d never stop being Richard Johnson. Richard isn’t any particular set of personality traits, even though some people no doubt think that’s the case.
I could become a dumb sports-obsessed jock, and that would freak everyone out because it’s probably my utter opposite - but I’d still be me.
So I told her she could try to go back to being what she used to be like, but that the old her wasn’t any more real than the present one. She was fascinated by this and really appreciated me putting it in those terms. I also flatly told her that she’d fail at resisting men - that she’d go a week or two at uni and then succumb to temptation. We both laughed about it but I was completely serious. The months by, summer break ended, and in the first week back at uni she had a one-night stand. She regretted it. Then the following week she had another one. She regretted that one too.
After this she told me that she was in a really weird place and that she didn’t like it. She told me that she was going to go a month without having sex, that she was going to try again. A week later she had sex again. And, yes, she regretted doing so.
Self change
Some time ago I changed my diet so that I didn’t eat any sugar, cows’ milk or refined carbohydrates. I didn’t eat these products for over a month and had little problem doing so. The main drawback was in the first week when I was hungry nearly constantly, but after that it was plain sailing. I was doing the diet to improve my skin, but after 90 days of no marked change I stopped for the sake of convenience. My skin is getting a little worse now though, so I may well go back to that diet again. Perhaps I needed to stick with it longer than 90 days. I’m a vegetarian now but that shouldn’t make it much harder to go back to.
Which is harder? Going without sex for a couple of weeks when you’re single or going a month and a half without, say, 90% of your usual foods? Serious question. People will side with different answers.
These goals aren’t so different: they’re both about resisting temptation. The girl on the phone faced temptation more or less every time she went clubbing (which is every other night) and I faced temptation at meal times and whenever I got hungry. Sex is more compelling than food, but food is much, much more available and more easily acquired - plus the temptation with food is much more a constant.
So how is it I achieved my food goal while the girl failed at her zero sex goal? It’s tempting to say it’s discipline - but I don’t think it’s so simple. I mean, sure, anyone can do anything physically or mentally possible with enough discipline, but it wasn’t as if she were lacking in that department.
How did I know she’d fail? I knew she hadn’t changed over the summer. She’s a very disciplined individual, but she’s not someone who can go without a romantic episode or two. I, on the other hand, have always been pretty indifferent to food so it’s no big deal for me to radically change my diet.
I’ve still had my share of unsuccessful changes though.
I remember when I was around ten-years-old I decided I wasn’t going to play on my Sega Megadrive (Genesis) anymore. I don’t know why that was, but I guess my mum’s comments that I spent too much time on it had gotten to me. I decided to stop playing on it. I went five days without turning it on, and then I saw a programme on TV that made me really, really want to play a particular video game I had. I wrestled with my urge and ended up trying to get my dad’s approval for breaking my decision to not play on the console anymore. My dad said something like ‘if you want to, play on it - it’s fine.’ So I did.
At ten-years-old five days without playing any video games was quite a long stretch for me, but it was still hardly a strain. Why couldn’t I go longer? Was it a lack of discipline? Again, tonnes of discipline would have seen me through, but actually it was much more about who I was back then. I was a kid and I loved video games. Simple as that.
Today I own one console, a PlayStation 2. I never bought a next-gen console because I just don’t play games enough these days to warrant buying one. If you were to challenge me to go five days without playing a video game now I’d laugh. Make it six months - that’s the only way it would be challenging. Games changed from being my life to being something I use to chill out.
I’ve said this before, but in my first year at uni I deliberately did things I didn’t want to do. I drank alcohol, got drunk a few times and went clubbing. I didn’t want to get back to any real me. I knew there was no such thing. I wanted change. The problem was doing new stuff didn’t make me a new person. I couldn’t change to be someone who enjoyed clubbing just by going clubbing.
Why can’t I enjoy clubbing? I don’t really know. Maybe I have something against people spending what would feed African villages on clothes they wear just for when they’re trying to get f***ed. (I know, I know, I just censored my own article - but I don’t want to get the site locked off computers with those parental locking systems). Or maybe I just don’t like what qualifies as dancing in dark crowded rooms with flashing lights. Perhaps it’s also people drinking themselves into a lack of awareness to enjoy themselves.
I’ve been there, I’ve done it and I generally disliked it.
So, I seldom do it anymore (and on the very rare occasions I do there is always an ulterior motive - like meeting people I wouldn’t otherwise meet, because God knows I don’t do it for fun).
I didn’t change in the past with gaming or clubbing because my thoughts didn’t. You can act how you wish and nothing will happen: if you’re doing something with the same old thoughts and beliefs you’ll be the same as ever. I can’t enjoy clubbing not so much for the activity itself, but for my thoughts on what it all is: a symbol of everything that’s wrong with Western civilisation.
I wasn’t able to change in that regard, but when you think about it that’s not so bad.
Don’t concern yourself with getting back to the real you. And realize if you’re trying to change that it’s not enough to do different things - at some point you have to think differently, and once that happens the rest will fall into place. I mentioned the sequence in the previous article:
See reality differently and you become different to how you were, which causes you to act differently and in the end this will cause others to see you differently. It’s that straight-forward.
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