Self-Help For Cynics #26: To A Louse

Chumbawamba - Tubthumping

Oh, would some Power the gift give us
To see ourselves as others see us!
It would from many a blunder free us,
And foolish notion:
What airs in dress and gait would leave us,
And even devotion!

So ends one of Robert Burns' most famous poems (well, the English translation of it anyway, which I'm sure will horrify some of you), in which Burns writes about seeing a louse crawling on a woman’s bonnet in church. At first he’s disgusted by the sight, though by the end of the poem he turns more philosophical. If we could see ourselves through other people’s eyes, he argues, we would lose all our pretensions and realise that no one person is better than anybody else…

Bettie Serveert - Hell = Other People

Nice idea, Rabbie, but many of us spend far too much time worrying about how other people see us. Welcome to FOPO – Fear of Other People’s Opinions. Here’s a for instance…

Someone I know – we’ll call him Tiberius – finds it hard to make small talk with colleagues or discuss his life outside work. He can handle more formal discussions about work-related matters in a relaxed fashion, making jokes when appropriate, and generally feels like his opinion and experience is valued in those circumstances. But when everyone starts chatting about what they did last night, what they’re doing at the weekend, what they’re watching on TV or what music they like… he clams up. If someone raises a topic he has an opinion on – say they mention a TV show he’s actually watched or a band he has some knowledge of – he’s not afraid to chip in. What he won’t do is set the agenda. He won’t mention a show nobody else has been talking about, and he certainly won’t tell them he’s been out to see Craig Finn or Lucinda Williams over the weekend. (In case you’re wondering, Tiberius goes to a lot of the same gigs I do. We don’t go together because, to be honest, I find him rather tedious company.)

Morrissey - People Are The Same Everywhere

Why won’t Tiberius tell his colleagues about the great time he had watching Craig or Lucinda? Why would he rather pretend he’s done nothing at the weekend? Why won’t he ask them if anybody’s watching the final series of Curb or if they saw Fargo Season 5 – the best one yet? Well, only Tiberius would be able to answer those questions for sure. But here are a couple of suggestions…

The Wonder Stuff - Let's Be Other People

1. Tiberius doesn’t feel that his own life would be of interest to anybody else. (There’s a huge irony here in that Tiberius spends a great deal of his time chronicling said life on a blog that very few people read – I’m not linking to it, to spare you the agony. But he does that, he claims, purely for his own mental health, and it’s a bonus if other people read it, though he really can’t understand why they would.)

Clifford T. Ward - Are You Really Interested?

2. Tiberius does not wish to be judged by his own interests or opinions. If he tells people he watches Curb, they might think he’s a sociopathic misanthropist like Larry David. And mentioning any kind of musical interest outside the mainstream is a certain way of finding yourself stereotyped or pigeon-holed, labelled and tagged. You like country music, Tiberius? Yee-haw! You like ROCK? Do… I… need… to… talk… more… slowly… so… you… understand? You like Taylor Swift too? Sad old man desperately trying to cling onto his youth by appearing hip? Bruce Springsteen? I never liked Born In The USA… too jingoistic for me. No, expressing any kind of musical preference just opens one up to stereotyping, prejudice and general all-purpose ignorance… and the last thing Tiberius wants is to get into an argument defending his tastes… because that would just make him look touchy.

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Judge Not

Why does Tiberius care what other people think? To answer that question, I turned to our old friend Mr. Google, who directed me towards psychologist Michael Gervais at The Harvard Business Review. Gervais has written a couple of articles that jumped out at me, one called How to Stop Worrying About What Other People Think of You and one called Stop Basing Your Self-Worth on Other People’s Opinions. The first of those is a bit too Inspirational for me – it concludes by suggesting we tackle self-esteem issues by cultivating our own “personal philosophy” or mission statement… but then, this is The Harvard Business Review, and Gervais’s clients do include “world record holders, Olympians, internationally acclaimed artists and musicians, MVPs from every major sport, and Fortune 100 CEOs”… so what do you expect? (Clearly he's overcome any of his own self-esteem issues a long time ago.) 

Ian McNabb - Other People

Still, best not to consult Dr. Gervais if you're a mediocre loser like Tiberius. His article did however reiterate something we’ve discussed here before – how the monkey brain fears being ostracized by the “tribe”.

Unfortunately, FOPO is part of the human condition since we’re operating with an ancient brain. A craving for social approval made our ancestors cautious and savvy; thousands of years ago, if the responsibility for the failed hunt fell on your shoulders, your place in the tribe could be threatened. The desire to fit in and the paralyzing fear of being disliked undermine our ability to pursue the lives we want to create.

Memphis Nomads - Don't Pass Your Judgement

The second article was more enlightening, particularly when it discussed the core principles of self-worth, and how everybody judges themselves by a different yardstick. For some, academic prowess trumps everything else. For others, it’s physical appearance. It could be financial stability or sporting ability or just being a nice, caring person… we all have an internal barometer of success, and they’re all attuned to a slightly different wavelength. Which, when you think about it, makes seeing ourselves through other people’s eyes a bit of a non-starter. Someone with an athletically-attuned mindset might look at Tiberius and think, you’re getting a bit flabby, mate, isn’t it time you hit the gym? But if that doesn’t match Tiberius’s own metric… he'd rather people thought he was a good writer and a genuine human being... so what’s the point in even trying to make a comparison? 

Other people's lives
Seem more interesting
'cause they ain't mine

Modest Mouse - Other People's Lives

Gervais gets to the crux of the matter when he discusses “externalising your self-worth”, in other words, trying to conform to other people’s metrics.

Externalizing our self-worth, when it works, can yield short-term benefits. We get emotionally and chemically rewarded when we succeed. Our hypothalamus produces dopamine, often referred to as the feel-good neurotransmitter. Our self-esteem gets lifted, leaving us feeling safe, secure, and superior.

But dependency on external validation and social approval has a dark alter ego that reveals itself over time because outsourcing our self-worth undermines the basic human needs of competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

Woah. There’s quite a lot to unpack there. I fear we may have to return to Tiberius next week…