By Irene Conlan -

Most of us don’t get bogged down in definitions of words like “self” – we know we’re talking about the “I” that’s called “me.” For those of you who love definitions, “The self is a key construct in several schools of psychology, broadly referring to the cognitive and affective representation of one’s identity.” Wikipedia

But let’s don’t get bogged down in that bit of psychiatric hair splitting over a word we all understand. Hey, it’s me – the me inside this body that thinks, feels, knows, makes decisions, loves, longs for, and all those other things I do that differentiate me from any else. Oops, there I spilled the beans.

My “self” differentiates me from everyone else.

Are you telling me that I’m not supposed to be like anyone else?

Yep.

As humans we all have similarities and we all have uniqueness. For instance we all have likes and dislsikes but what those likes and dislikes are varies from person to person. We all experience hunger but what satisfies that hunger is unique. We each can hear the same music but how we experience it is distinctive to “me.”  Everything I see, hear, experience in anyway is filtered through my total experience throughout my lifetime and that makes it special to “me.” Get it? My self has to be different from your self because our total lifetime experience has varied.

Got it.  So?

Well, let’s talk about putting “self” back into self improvement. There are a lot of books on the shelves of bookstores and libraries offering “self help.”  In fact one web site lists the 50 top self help classics. Classics! (And I think they’re worth reading over a lifetime.) They cover almost any topic you can imagine from Anxiety control to zodiac signs and each has it’s own slant – you can get two books on the same topic that give you totally different advice. So which one is right? Perhaps both.  Perhaps neither. In my opinion most self help books are valuable as guidelines, as information to be considered before you make the decision based on who you are and what you want.

We are fortunate to have so much wonderful information at our fingertips. If we want to know how to do lose weight, for example, we can go to the bookstore, library, internet, your family physician or a bariatric specialist. When you have information from each of them then, looking at all the data and all the advice, you can make a decision that works for you. (Hopefully).  If you want to stop smoking you can do the same type of research and then make a choice – do you wear a patch, take a pill, visit a hypnotist, get acupuncture,  or just go “cold turkey?” It’s your choice – what works best for you.

It is my own personal opinion that we put too much confidence in the “experts” who know a lot about a subject but nothing about you – or me. I love the experts and I consult them often. You probably do, too. Fantastic. But do you take their words as “gospel truth” or do you weigh them carefully along with other “experts” on the same subject and made a decision based on your needs, wants and individual differences?

Yes?

Good for you.

We are gifted with good minds, a wide range of emotions, solid inner guidance and free will. We may be out of the habit of making good decisions for ourselves but we can get back into the swing of it soon with a little practice. It’s not too late to stop trying to be like everyone else and discover what’s so wonderfully special about your “self” and what about you is beautifully unique.

Join with me in the campaign to put “self” back into self improvement. It sounds like fun to me.