Soliloquy

 

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Hasta kaugalingon imo ilaron? It is often disorienting to hear people cover-up their mistakes even if they are already glaringly obvious. One can then proceed to wondering what is the status of the person’s self-actualization.

The attainment of self-actualization involves one’s full involvement in life and the realization of that which one is capable of accomplishing.

There is a need to understand your own motivations. Why are you driven to attain those things you hunger for? The problem is when the individual fail to realize the “drives” he or she have. This is the main reason why developmental psychologists underscore the importance of reflections and introspection. In your journals, you can infer the things you lack and why your desires are directed to some stimuli.

Generally, the state of self-actualization is viewed as obtainable only after one’s fundamental needs for survival, safety, love and self-esteem are met (Maslow, 1943, 1954).

But then, we hear people tell lies on their actions and why they falter on their responsibilities. They sugarcoat their faults and look for scapegoats. That is where failure comes in. When we fail to realize that there are fundamental needs that we still have to meet.

Carl Rogers described self-actualization as the continuous lifelong process whereby an individual’s self-concept is maintained and enhanced via reflection and the reinterpretation of various experiences which enable the individual to recover, change and develop (Rogers, 1951).

There is a need to do hands-on improvement of the self. That is our individual responsibility. Our contribution to the world depends on how we manage our selves for the common good.

Complainant

 

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Lord, salamat sa buhangin. I was struck with a myriad of thoughts as I overheard a child playing on the very fine white sand of a sandbar. She was a daughter of a teacher who was with me during that trip. At her age, she understands how to be grateful.

There are those whom I know who complain a lot. They curse on the weather causing them headaches. They rant on the damage the rains do to their clothes and they basically complain on everything.

Complaining is simply expressing dissatisfaction. This usually happens verbally. One may be the “locus of control,” or how much control a person feels she has in a situation. There may be other personal factors involved as well, such as tolerance for conflict, age, and the desire to present one’s self positively (Biswas-Diener, 2017).

Research shows that chronic complaining has physiological effects. Through the repetition of bad, sad, mad and powerless feelings, the neurotransmitters in the brain can go through a neural “rewiring,” which reinforces negative thought patterns, making it easier for unhappy thoughts to repeat themselves and leaving little room for the more positive feelings of gratitude, appreciation, and well-being.

The opposite of complaining is simply gratitude and appreciation.

Gratitude is a way for people to appreciate what they have instead of always reaching for something new in the hopes it will make them happier or thinking they can't feel satisfied until every physical and material need is met. Gratitude helps people refocus on what they have instead of what they lack.

Gratitude activates dopamine in the brain and creates the conditions for optimism.

Therefore, those who complain a lot end up being unhappy.

Stay away from people who are always dwelling on the negative side. Most of them are unsuccessful. You might be infected by their darkness.

Malicious Intents

 

Ka-testing kaw jaon ikaw na noon an pakasad-on? There are people who play up with others to the point that you will be judged as the culprit. These persons are wolves in sheep’s clothing. They show some sort of “holiness” up front. But deep inside, their intentions are purely dark.

Someone with a bad intention is aiming to cause harm. A person can have bad physical and psychological intentions. As it is possible to physically harm someone as well as emotionally abuse or misuse someone for one’s own personal gain (Mangelschots, 2022).

Bad intentions are also commonly called malicious intentions.

But what if you will be placed as the villain when you try to confront the bad intention of another? When you will be honest one in telling the truth up front to the person how harm has been caused by him/her to others, they sometime retaliate and make you as the BAD GUY.

Worse, there are those who believe the accusations!

Individuals with “dark” personalities regularly use gossip to spread negative information and harm others that would surely contribute to the negative reputation of gossip.

Indeed this world can sometimes be unfair. But there is always a belief that what one displaces will come back to him/her. Let us just wait for the precise time when the bad intentions will become something worse than their malice.

Anyway, the good intentions that we have are the ones seen by the Maker.

 

Credits

 

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Umay kuyang na pirme man naghanap na makilay-an? Affirmation is important. But when the need to be appreciated all the time is the main motivation for working and doing what is right surface, something is wrong.

Emotional Deprivation Disorder was first discovered by Dutch psychiatrist Dr. Anna A. Terruwe in the 1950’s. She called it the frustration neurosis as it has to do with the frustration of the natural sensitive need for unconditional love.

Emotional Deprivation Disorder is a syndrome (a grouping of symptoms) which results from a lack of authentic affirmation and emotional strengthening by another. A person may have been criticized, ignored, abandoned, neglected, abused, or emotionally rejected by primary caregivers early in life, resulting in the person’s arrested emotional development.

It is absolutely true that we all need our friends, family, and partner to offer us recognition, but not in an obsessive and continuous way, because then what shows is a clear insecurity in the person. And then, one cornerstone of self-esteem would be falling apart.

Recognition is necessary for human beings. It helps people grow with assurance. However, it is also necessary that we exercise it inside ourselves, making it rise up like an inner locomotive capable of giving us confidence, strength, and stability.

A powerful, authentic leader does not need recognition to feel good. They know that their skills, approaches and leadership are making a difference. They get on with the job, leaving self-consciousness behind, negating the need for others to confirm how great they are.

Recognition is now seen as a necessity in our people strategy and yet the need for it not only creates a population of people who feel vulnerable and insecure, it also creates rebellion and a "them and us" situation when reward schemes are set in place to highlight a minority (Villani, 2013).

Self-awareness, and self-recognition might be the solution to the growing social conflicts. Maturity of emotions and can be done only with more reflections and the realization that what counts here in this world are good intentions and their outcomes…not just the awards we receive for doing what is expected of us.

Better Alone

 

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Mogara kun mahamok an iban.  When in a group, there are tendencies that one lets loose: Manners will be forgotten and the danger of being on familiar grounds allow the person to act sometimes in offensive ways.

Let us have a situation inside a fast-food chain when people are queueing. There are those who order food as a group. Then they argue on what food to order. For some minutes, they think on their preferences and even add some more orders forgetting that there are people next in line who are hungry have schedules to catch up.

There are also those group of friends who talk loudly inside a passenger vehicle as if their stories and jokes are meant to be heard by the world. They do not consider others like if their seatmates are trying to catch a nap.

Walden University published an article which states: When we’re in a group, we have a strong tendency to conform to the norms of that group. This may be due to the fact that, in many ways, groups protect us. By conforming, we demonstrate our willingness to be a part of the group, thus increasing the likelihood the group will protect us.

With conformity, we follow a group’s norms for the sake of getting along. When a specific behavior is normalized in us, we believe it to be normal and proper, which bonds us strongly to groups that believe the same. Depending on what’s being normalized, normalization can either be positive (eating healthy is normal) or negative (using drugs is normal).

But these persons act differently when they are alone. Sometimes, they are even more behaved and reserved – conscious of their manners and actions.

That’s why there are those who prefer to be alone (like this writer). Conforming to the norms of a group can oftentimes lose one’s identity.

Big Heads

 

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Sige kaw sipanmantay sa iban nagkapag gan ton im buhok! What’s with this people who are so fond of looking for the mistakes of others when in fact they are also flawed? Is this some sort of trying to become superior to hide the inferiorities in them?

In the bestselling book of Stephen R. Covey, he mentioned about the circle of influence - the things that concern you that you can do something about. This must be developed as a habit so to become highly effective.

Ergo, there are tendencies that the people who are so concerned outside their circle of influence are NOT effective in their dealings with their personal and professional lives.

By successfully focusing on the things we can influence within our own life, family, or business (e.g. our own actions, behaviors, planning, etc), that impact our own lives directly, we can indirectly have an impact on a larger scale (Abraham, 2020).

Yet, there are those who persist on looking at the mistakes of others forgetting that they themselves need to upgrade themselves to become better persons. Alfred Adler, an early psychologist, in his theory of Individual Psychology defined superiority complex as a reaction to a deep feeling of inferiority.

If people have an unrealistically high sense of self-esteem that’s causing their superiority complex, it can still cause negative mental health effects. A superiority complex is likely to make them feel overconfident in their abilities. They may not work hard enough to achieve their goals, and failure may make them feel especially bad (Brennan, 2021).

This type of overconfidence can also push away other people in the life of those who are overconfident. That is the reason why they are disliked by many.

So, we can start pushing them away from our lives too. If they pester us continuously, they deserve to be pushed literally.

Delusional

 

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Ikaw kibali an pinaka-brayt? There are people who think that they are better than others. They have this mindset that they are endowed with perfection in terms of intelligence to the point that they belittle and disrespect others.

There’s nothing wrong with being very smart. It’s when an individual lets his pride in being smart, go to his head, that problems start to occur. Such swollen-headed individuals exhibit a condition known as intellectual arrogance.

Intellectual arrogance refers to a state and frame of mind, where an individual considers his/her intellect to be superior to others, his/her knowledge cannot be challenged and he/she judges others based on their intellect (socialmettle.com).

But what if the feigned intellect is also limited? What if the individual is just having some sort of delusions of grandeur?

People experiencing delusions of grandeur see themselves as great, highly accomplished, more important than others, or even magical. The delusion may be persistent, or it may appear only periodically.

However, a delusion of grandeur is more than just very high self-esteem or an inflated sense of self-importance. It marks a significant disconnection from the real world. A person with delusions of grandeur may continue to believe in the delusion in spite of contradictory evidence (Legg, 2018).

Even if the person is NOT that intelligent, the delusion continues due to the inflated sense of importance. Psychologists believe that this is being caused by poor parental affirmation and lack of affection during childhood.

So, those who insult us for not being able to cope with their BELIEVED intelligence, let us examine their childhood and investigate how their parents raised them.