丁勝華

Yes! People who dont like themselves are a pain in the neck!

Usually, people with a poor self-image use one of two irritating strategies. They either criticize you a lot or criticize themselves a lot.

STRATEGY A: They criticize you a lot. They figure that by criticizing other people they can feel better about themselves.

Lets take Fred, who feels inferior. Fred thinks he has a big nose and piggy eyes. He also secretly feels a bit stupid.

So whats his strategy to feel better about himself? He criticizes all his friends. He has names for them like “Flathead”, “Chicken Legs” and “Dogbrain”. Whenever someone else makes a mistake, he announces it to the whole class. He probably doesnt even realize he criticizes people or why he does it.

If you have parents, friends or brothers and sisters who dont like themselves—they might criticize you and everyone around them. Just remember that they criticize you because they have a problem. If you remember that they are actually hurting inside, you wont get so upset by their behaviour.

STRATEGY B: Some people who dont like themselves criticize themselves a lot. They use reverse psychology ...

Take Mary who doesnt like herself. Shes always telling you, “You are prettier than me. You are smarter. Nobody likes me.” Shes hoping that you will reply, “No, Mary! You are clever. You are beautiful.” After a while, people like Mary get on your nerves!

In a nutshell, when we dont like ourselves, we irritate other people. We also put ourselves through a lot of stress. When we accept ourselves a little better, we dont play these games.

How Can I Like Myself?

In our hearts, most of us believe we should be doing better. We think that we should have gotten higher grades. We want to be popular and hang out with the “in” crowd. We feel we dont measure up to our parents expectations. Our parents help to confirm this idea when they ask, “Why cant you be more like your brother?”

Whenever you are feeling low, be your own best friend. Accept that, up to now, you have lived your life the best way you know how. No one sets out to screw up their life! Like anyone, youve done the odd stupid thing. With more information youll likely do better in the future.

Liking yourself means forgiving yourself. If you have made some serious mistakes, if you have hurt some people—and yourself—feeling guilty wont help.

If you are feeling guilty about something, you have already suffered enough. Being guilty for another six months wont help anybody.

Forget perfection and aim for improvement.

Its a funny thing. When you forgive yourself for your own mistakes, you automatically begin to let others off the hook for the same things.

“But Im Not Brilliant ...”

You might look at yourself and say, “Im not as beautiful as my sister, Im not as talented as my friends and Im not brilliant at anything! How can I feel good about me?”

Fact: Nobody is good at everything and most of us have those thoughts!

But heres the lowdown! Talent and beauty are very useful—but there are plenty of talented and beautiful people around whom we dont necessarily admire. And some of them are a pan in the butt!

The qualities most of us value above all others are honesty, courage, persistence, generosity and humility. Take a look at this list and youll find something interesting. You arent born with these things. You develop them. Anyone can have them! If you want self-respect, and respect from others, you dont have to be an Einstein or a super-model.

You simply work at developing your own honesty, determination, generosity, humility and courage. It is called “character”.

In a nutshell, how you feel about yourself is in your hands.

確實如此！不喜歡自己的人很討厭！

通常，自我感覺不好的人會采用兩種策略，他們要么老是挑剔別人，要么總是挑剔自己。

策略一：老是挑剔別人。他們以為挑別人的錯就能自我感覺良好。

比如說弗雷德吧，他就覺得自己不如別人。弗雷德感到自己長了一個大鼻子，兩只豬眼睛，還暗自感覺腦子有點笨。

那他想感覺好一點怎么辦呢？于是就挑所有朋友的毛病，給他們起一些怪名字，什么“平頭”啊，“雞腿”啊，“狗腦”啊等等。每當有人犯錯誤，他就對全班同學宣布。他很可能壓根兒就沒意識到在批評別人——否則，為什么要這么做。

如果你父母、朋友或兄弟姊妹不喜歡自己，他們可能挑剔你和身邊的每一個人。請記住，他們挑剔你是因為他們有問題。其實他們內(nèi)心有傷痛，記住這一點，你就不會對他們的行為感到特別心煩了。

策略二：有些不喜歡自己的人老是說自己不好。他們的心理正好相反。

拿瑪麗來說吧，她就不喜歡自己。她總對別人說，“你比我漂亮。你比我聰明。誰都不喜歡我?！彼睦锲鋵嵪Ｍ麑Ψ竭@樣回答，“不對，瑪麗！你很聰明，很漂亮”。不用多久，瑪麗這種人就會令人生厭。

簡言之，當我們不喜歡自己，就會去煩別人。同時我們自身也會承受很大的壓力。我們對自己好一點，就不會去玩那些煩人的把戲了。

怎樣才能喜歡自己呢？

從內(nèi)心里看，大多數(shù)人都認為自己應該比現(xiàn)在強。我們認為考試分數(shù)應該再高一些。我們想受人歡迎，跟那些“時髦的”人在一起。我們感到達不到父母的期望。父母也證實了這一點。他們會說，“你就不能向你哥哥多學一點？”

無論何時當你感覺不爽，你要做自己最親密的朋友。要承認到目前為止，你是在以你所知的最佳方式生活。誰都不會成心破壞自己的生活。你跟別人一樣做了些奇怪而愚蠢的事。你如果知道得多一些，將來就會做得好一些。

喜歡自己意味著原諒自己。如果你犯了嚴重的錯誤，如果你傷害了別人，傷害了自己，內(nèi)疚是不管用的。

如果你為某事感到內(nèi)疚，你已經(jīng)受到了足夠的折磨。再內(nèi)疚半年，對人對己都無濟于事。

忘記完善，立志改善

這是很有趣的一件事。一旦你原諒自己的過錯，就會自動不再追究別人同樣的錯誤。

“但是我不很出色……”

你也許會將自己審視一番，說，“我沒姐姐那么漂亮，也沒朋友那么聰明，我哪方面都不出色！叫我怎么感覺良好？”

事實是：沒有誰是事事俱佳的，而且大多數(shù)人都有你這種想法。

不過真相是這樣的！才智和美貌很有用，但是對聰明漂亮的人我們并不一定就羨慕，這樣的人在我們周圍大有人在。再說有些人不過是徒有其表而已！

大多數(shù)人最看重的品質(zhì)是誠實、勇敢、堅毅、慷慨和謙遜。只要看看這一串詞語，就能發(fā)現(xiàn)一件有趣的事。這些品質(zhì)不是與生俱來的，是后天培養(yǎng)的。人人都能擁有！想自重并受人尊重，不一定非得是愛因斯坦或超級名模。

你只需努力培養(yǎng)自己的誠實、果斷、慷慨、謙遜和勇敢就行了。這就叫“品格”。

簡言之，自我感覺如何全看你如何把握。