I’m Trying to Be Better—But It’s Fueling My Self-Criticism
Turns out it’s really hard to unlearn the harmful cultural programming we’re steeped in without feeling shitty all the time.
I want to bring up something that feels like a universal experience among my 30- and 40-something-year-old friends. It’s a multi-step process, actually.
- First, we come to recognize that something we like, or want, or have strived for all our lives, is actually the product of problematic cultural programming.
- Then we try really hard to deprogram ourselves, and we’re not fully successful.
- Finally, we feel really fucking guilty and ashamed when we can’t become the idealized, deprogrammed versions of ourselves we so want to be.
- Repeat ad infinitum.
For me, this has happened in a whole bunch of domains. Guilt around my anti-fat, pro-thin bias. Guilt around wanting to look a certain way more generally, really. Guilt around valuing “school smarts,” or “intellectual giftedness,” or whatever you want to call it. Guilt around valuing making and having money.
To be clear, I do think that these preferences are harmful. Take having a preference for thin bodies. When all of society thinks that thin bodies are better than fat ones, people in bigger bodies suffer. Both physically and emotionally, they suffer.
By leaning into thinness — by trying to stay thin (or become thinner) and reaping the benefits of my body size, I’m perpetuating that bias. (I’ll always be grateful to researcher and activist Aubrey Gordon for helping me not just get this intellectually but feel it in my bones.)
It’s like Ibram X. Kendi’s explanation that if you’re not anti-racist, you’re racist — that in a racist society, anything that doesn’t dismantle racism actually facilitates it. The same can be said for anti-fat bias: if you’re not actively combating that bias, you’re enabling its existence.
What I’m struggling with is all the effort it takes to resist and dismantle cultural programming. It’s… hard. And while there’s definitely a voice inside of me mocking that idea — “Oh, boo hoo, woe is me, a highly privileged white, thin, cis, hetero woman” — I do want to validate the stress of living with a constant activist, “fight the system” mentality, especially when that oppositional energy is directed back toward your self.
It can begin to feel like, to be a good person, you need to constantly scan your mind for flaws and shortcomings. It’s very perfectionistic — which I don’t believe is bad, necessarily, but it definitely is energy-consuming.
This entire orientation can, at times, feel at odds with self-acceptance. With peace, calm, rest, openness. With gentleness.
And that’s the crux of my issue. I’m tired. Tired of self-improvement culture; tired of judging myself for being a product of the world I live in. But I also do feel a responsibility to strive for justice. I don’t want to throw in the towel and abandon that responsibility.
I guess what I’m looking for is a new orientation (framework? mindset?) that helps me be a good person in a way that feels sustainable, generative, and joyful, rather than self-critical.
Does this resonate with anyone here? I’d love to hear your ideas. ❤
