“There is stability in self-destruction, in prolonging sadness as a means of escaping abstractions like happiness. Rock bottom is a surprisingly comfortable place to lay your head. Looking up from the depths of another low often seems a lot safer than wondering when you’ll fall again. Falling feels awful.
I’d rather fucking fly.”
― Kris Kidd
Self Sabotage is doing (or not doing) anything knowingly or unknowingly that blocks/stop us from getting what we want.
In my experience this is mostly because of a feeling of un-deservedness, at some point (mostly when we are close to getting something we want), we get the feeling of not deserving it, this is not specific to anyone or any particular field, I have seen this happen in relationships, career or just unimportant things like getting a strike in a bowling game with your friends.
We have observed our behavior for our entire life (duh!!), heck, only we have observed our behavior for our entire life, as empowering as it sounds, it gave us one terrible realization — “I am a horrible person!!!”, well, of course, I am, why else would I lie to my friend, why else would I look at someone hurting and turn around without helping them, heck, why else would I not care about global warming, and remember that time when I had cheated in some exam like three years ago, so, of course, I don’t deserve the life I have today — whatever the example could be, there is a very very high chance you feel the same way. So why do you deserve success anyway then?? For all the things you have done, you only deserve hell, not happiness. This trail of thought added with nihilism and a pinch of Kafkaesque probably has robbed humanity of hundreds if not thousands of years of technological and emotional evolution. The worst part is, no one else had even noticed your flaws as a human being, for they, themselves are busy torturing themselves with the same. The flaws are what make us human, and until we learn to forgive ourselves for the same, we will perhaps never be able to live in peace with ourselves.
The other reason could be fear of success. However surprising it may sound, it’s true, and you probably know it’s true and is still in denial. This comes around in many forms and factors, perhaps your fear of public speaking, your legs shaking, and lack of eye contact when trying to talk to someone, or even something as subtle as sending a risky text. We want to win (for the most part), but when we almost win, we fear it (again, for the most part). This ordinary fear of winning something important and thereby losing the purpose of life is sometimes the sole cause of losing-by-not-trying. Conveniently, the bigger the win and longer the time we spent on it, the larger the fear of winning it all is. It is so sad to see people struggle for days, months, or even years together, only to throw it all away at the last moment and sweep it under the rug with some lame excuse like “I didn’t want it anyway” or “I am better off without it” etc. Perhaps you don’t want to face the truth, that losing is a genuine chance, so instead of trying to win, you just mess it up, so once things inevitably go south, you have a softer landing than what you would have got if you have persevered. It almost sounds like a coping mechanism, so when everything eventually crashes and burns, you can have an easy exit from the trouble.
Ironically, the fear of success might arise from the fear of failure (which is objectively rational to an extent at least), the whole fear of losing and being ridiculed when that happens is a fear I have seen time and time again. The fear of success/failure has got to be the most irrational of all these, because for the most part, in the 1st world problems we are facing, losing isn’t that bad, like no one gonna remember you messing up the pronunciation of some obscure word no one had heard before, so why try to shut yourself off from the rest of the world. one thing I have realized is attachment-issue could also be a form of fear of success/failure, in my case the fact that I could get social approval, is enough to terrify the very core of my existence at times, so naturally, the easiest way out is to mess it up and play the blame-game.
And all of these are fully amplified by the comfort of where we currently are, regardless of whether its rock-bottom or Cloud9, because even if its rock-bottom, there’s a comfort in knowing that you can’t lose anymore, which is the highway to all sorts of self-loathing and self-hatred as well.
Heck, I had postponed finishing the draft like three times, because I am terrified that once it’s finished, what next???
Of course, there could be other reasons for self-sabotage like
- Perfectionism (like a glorified fear of failure?)
- lack of clarity
- Lack of motivation
“The shop is exactly the size I always wanted it to be. I don’t want to change anything, because I don’t know how to deal with change. I’m used to the way I am.”
― The Shopkeeper in “The Alchemist” who was afraid of change and success alike
Why should you listen to me anyway?
You don’t have to, heck I even suggest not to take me seriously, because I am neither a psychologist nor a philosopher or a scientist, let alone be qualified to speak about any of this in any form or factor, I am just a meaningless speck of dust finding or at least trying to find out stuff about life.
