The Nerdist Way_ How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life) - Chris Hardwick [91]
GO EASY ON YOURSELF
As a subclass of humans Nerds are excruciatingly critical. You will see this if you’ve ever been on a Nerd’s hunting ground, the message board. Unfortunately, the person a Nerd tends to be hardest on is himself or herself. I know this because I do it. And all of my Nerd friends do it. I IMPLORE you to go easy on yourself. Seriously. This world is challenging enough without adding the obstacle of self-loathing. Being constructively critical is good, as long as your purpose is to improve your methods for future endeavors. Lying in bed and replaying failures and telling yourself you’re stupid is a tremendous disservice to your efforts and what you can offer the world.
Here’s another version of this, wrapped in a nice li’l bow of insecurity: You’re hanging out with someone you like and/or respect. You make a comment about something. On your way home, you play back the night in full-mental HD, and your brain flags the comment. As you loop it over and over again you are convinced that you offended the person because your comment could have been easily misconstrued. After several hours or a night of torturing yourself, you reach out to the person to apologize for the comment. They usually respond with a “Oh, I didn’t take it that way! No problem!” You feel better, the pattern repeats the next night. I get it! You want people to like you and you don’t want to offend them and give them a reason not to. Here’s how I got over this First off, you’re most likely not a dick and unless you overtly insult someone’s grandmother you probably didn’t come off the way you think you did. Second, if you are genuinely committed to being more comfortable with who you are, being worried at every turn what people think about you won’t matter. Last, and most crucial, I realized that the second you’re not standing in front of someone, they’re not thinking about you anymore. Your concern over how someone took your probably benign comment is a very self-centered point of view. You think you’re still affecting that person. The good news is, the overwhelming chance is that that person is just as self-centered and is probably thinking about himself or herself and NOT YOU. They were probably even doing this while you were “offending” them and wouldn’t be able to repeat the conversation back to you if asked.
SIDE NOTE TO “HONEST” PEOPLE—PET PEEVE ALERT: Please do not use this as a license to express whatever you feel like guilt-free. Surely you know some hateful twat who offers their negative, unsolicited opinion about you to your face: “Your shirt’s dumb,” and when you slightly protest they fire back with, “Hey, I’m just an honest person. That’s who I am. Sorry if you can’t handle that.” Here’s my message to these people, “FUCK YOU. A LOT. FOREVER.” “Honest” people give a truthful assessment when asked. “Douche bags” say any old shitty thing to people whenever they feel like. They presuppose that anyone gives a shit about their useless opining. (SEE Douche bag/robot connection, page 17.) When faced with these hate-demons, you may politely and smugly respond with, “Awwww, that’s ADORABLE that you think your unsolicited opinion means anything to anyone! I just wanna pinch your odious little cheeks and wrap you in a blanket. Like a house pet!”
SHIFT YOUR INCREDIBLE FOCUS
One-Minute Hugs
Even if everything’s going to shit and your favorite pastime is punching yourself in the balls (ladies have balls, too; they’re just all hidden up inside—BUT I’M GONNA FIND ’EM!!!) because you feel like you deserve inordinate amounts of abuse, just try this thing I’m about to tell you: Like yourself for one minute a day. Just a minute. The other 23:59 you can bathe in self-loathing’s brownish glow.
Time it so you don’t like yourself too much, because that could be disastrous. If you start to like yourself, you would start to radiate happiness and confidence.