A college student who stutters and experiences intense
self-hate, now fearfully avoids social situations. The stoic blogger, Massimo Pigliucci, advised:
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Seems to me the thing you need to focus now is
your self-hatred. Stoicism is a philosophy of acceptance of imperfection, both
in others and in ourselves. Here is Epictetus:
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“An ignorant person is inclined to blame others
for his own misfortune. To blame oneself is proof of progress. But the wise man
never has to blame another or himself.” (Enchiridion 5)
However, how can we accept ourselves when we fail ourselves
so painfully? Pigliucci provides some positive reinforcement:
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So, no, you are not a coward. Far from it. You
have had the courage to take on your condition and trying to do something about
it. You made valiant efforts, and a lot of progress. But you have not achieved
all your goals. That is okay. The next question is how to move forward.
Pigliucci realizes that positive reinforcement is not enough.
The college student needs some tangible reinforcements to prove to himself that
he is not contemptible, along with therapy and support groups.
Well, what if the problem continues or others appear? The
stoic answer is to focus on the effort and not the outcome. Pigliucci therefore
concludes:
·
But even if none of the above works, you are not
a coward. You are just a human being with a condition that he did not ask for
nor cause, and who is trying to do his best to overcome that condition, or at
least live the best life he can, given the situation. That takes courage.
In other words, “You are not as bad as you think or feel.
Therefore, accept yourself.” In essence, Pigliucci and stoicism have the
ultimate standard by which to judge, and the student should see himself in
terms of this standard, rather than his own inclinations.
However, this raises several questions. For one thing, why
do we even need a standard? Why not just believe that there are no objective standards
of judgment? Postmodernism tells us that there are absolutely no objective
standards. Instead, our standards or values are all humanly created and,
therefore, arbitrary and evolving. So just forget about them or create your
own.
However, this just doesn’t seem to work. Seemingly, we are
not free to create our own standards. Instead, we continue to live by standards
that cause us pain. Guilt, self-hatred, and shame are universal, and we spend
our lives in an unending struggle to pacify these painful realities.
Where does our embedded web of judgments come from? While
some have been inculcated through our socialization, the universality of others,
like the capacity to even experience guilt and shame, tends to argue for a
universal cause – DNA.
If so, who wired us to have moral standards and our painful,
life-controlling feelings? Many argue that evolution did it. These feelings
insured necessary group cohesion, but they are no longer necessary. We have
grown beyond our need for them. Therefore, they should be eliminated or reduced
through therapy.
In contrast, the Bible would argue that they are still
needful, lest we become amoral sociopaths. Instead, we have been wired by God
for morality and even for the knowledge of God.
Our troublesome moral evaluations and feelings are so deep
and integral to our being that they have resisted medication, re-education, and
therapy. Rather than relics which had
only once conferred upon the human race a survival advantage, they continue to
play a vital role.
We are moral creatures, and moral standards are part of what
it means to be human. To nullify them is to make ourselves less than human. Despite
our postmodern denials, our embedded moral circuitry insures some semblance of
morality. More importantly, they lead us to their ultimate Author and cure, the
forgiveness of God, that is able to counter all the feelings that result from
the absolute and unavoidable standards He has planted within us.
I know that this is an extreme and annoying claim. However,
I am certain that Christ is the missing piece that completes the puzzle of
humanity – the piece that holds all the other parts together in harmony. This
is something that can only be seen from within, but let me try to illustrate.
Not only does Christ forgive and cleanse me from all my
moral failures, He also has made following His implanted moral code – and we
find it spelled out in His Scriptures –a thing of joy, as the Prophet Isaiah
had portrayed the Messiah:
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And his delight shall be in [serving] the fear
of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by
what his ears hear, but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide
with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the
rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. (Isaiah
11:3-4)
When we embrace the moral law, which we find written on our
conscience, as truth, we also embrace ourselves, who we truly are. Therefore, I
find great delight and liberation in living in harmony with this embedded code.
This gives me a powerful rationale for resisting my destructive impulses and the
satisfaction in knowing the truth that exceeds all other claimants. It is like
completing a 1000 piece puzzle and seeing how all the shapes and patterns fit
together. It is also like standing on a mountaintop and seeing how all the
towns are connected together by their roads. There is joy in truth as well as
in morality.
There is also freedom. Before, I had been obsessed with
trying to prove my value as a person. Now this has been fulfilled in Jesus, as
Paul had commented:
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…I count everything [I had trusted in for my
self-esteem] as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as
rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through
faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith. (Philippians
3:8-9)
Guilt and shame are unforgiving taskmasters. They can never
be satisfied, no matter how much we sacrifice. They will always demand more accomplishments
and recognition. However, in Christ, we have all the validation we will ever
need.
Admittedly, I am over-simplifying. There are also potholes
in the roads and even obstacles. Sometimes, the puzzle comes with missing
pieces. However, we can trust that the pieces will soon become apparent.
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