Giving up on self-defeating self-talk

The mind is a powerful thing.

It can convince us that ghosts exist; that the position of the planets demonstrably affects our lives; that the answer to the Monty Hall problem is not “choose the other door”.

It can convince us we hate foods that we later come to love; that the aged mouldy excretions of a cow’s mammary glands are in fact a delicacy.

It can convince us that innocuous eight legged beasts 1/60,000 of our own weight are terrifying; whilst striped, fierce, clawed, fanged creatures 5 times our weight are cute.

It can convince us that other human beings don’t deserve to live because of the colour of their skin, or the country they were born in.

It can convince us to end our own lives.

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Might it not be then, that this mind of ours, while powerful, is often pretty stupid.

That perhaps sometimes we should question the validity of what it tells us, or ignore it completely.

That when it says “you suck”, or “you are stupid”, or “you are not worthy”, that perhaps it is wrong. That perhaps we should not give into, or even enjoy this feeling, and fight it instead. Banish it along with all the other myths, and fallacies, and fantasies, and biases that a mind crafted over 3.8 billion years comes up with when it is placed in a modern world free of genuine threat and scarcity.

Perhaps.