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Self-Pity: Eating Your Own Hearts
Instead, try self-compassion — and NO, it’s not about improving self-esteem
One thing I remember very clearly about my childhood is seeing my mother’s self-pity. I remember her drunk and crying while singing a song about a lonely orphan (she was physically and emotionally abused by her own mother). Once she told me a story about a tale of a man who kills himself after an endless stream of unfortunate events. It was like the world was all against him and there was no end — just like her life. I was still a kid and puzzled/worried: why would the world be so cruel to some people like us?
When I so lucky went to college in America, the classes I disliked the most were English classes (sorry teachers); nothing was wrong with the subject or instructors, it was my language skill (lack of). One day we read a famous poem, In the Desert by Stephen Crane:
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter — bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”
