Low status, Jordan Peterson, ego shattering

[PT89]

I grew up with an extreme attachment to "winning" and needing to be more competent than others at things I see as important, sports, academics etc.

Since starting my journey inwards of self-actualization, I've made a lot of progress towards being more content with life in general, however, I still find myself overly upset when I lose to a rival in a sport, or do poorly relative to my standards in my post grad.  I've built this image of myself that leads to a lot of unhappiness when I don't live up to my standards.

I've become much more socially isolated since moving to a new country to do my Doctorate, and as Jordan Peterson explains, when this occurs, and when you're not succeeding, your biology takes over and essentially makes you stressed out in order to do whatever it takes to get yourself into a better situation.  This sort of feeds back into "needing" to succeed and needing to win, making one unhappy otherwise.

But from all my work here, it seems that what I actually want is to be low status, to be at peace with not succeeding, to enjoy the process rather than the outcome.  Unfortunately, working towards this just seems to bring me more unhappiness, and makes me more susceptible to further stress.  I try to be as conscious of these negative emotions as I can when they arise after something so simple as losing a tough match, yet they don't seem to be getting much better because I feel my biology is just programmed to do its best to get me out of the situation, and it NEEDS to find a way to succeed, and that means not being satisfied with anything but.

 It seems to me like it's a battle between my motivation to shatter my ego by shining consciousness on what I perceive as bad circumstances vs my programmed biology, and it's a very difficult conflict.  Anyone have any tips for overcoming this?

 

 

 

 

[molosku]

Alan watts comes to mind, he talks a lot about games. Being attached to winning is like being attached to living, once you awaken you see that life is nothing but a series of games. You can participate and play your "im a human being and i should be taken seriously" - role, while being conscious that its all just a game. Compare this to someone who plays the game but does not know its a game, so winning or losing is a big deal, its the ultimate deal: to live or to die. 

In your situation, when you are attached to winning, maybe it is the case that you are not conscious that its a game. It really does not matter who wins or loses, when the game ends we all continue living just like before. Now you just have a memory of what happened. Personally you lost, and feel bad about it, because you didnt get to experience the joy of winning like the other person did.

You have a certain self image about yourself as a winner and a striver, but even if you strive and you lose you feel bad about not matching up to thay self image. 

If you have been self avtualizing for a while it probably does not surprise you that all this comes back to, and springs from your sense of self, a seperate being from the rest of the universe. 

What we all REALLY want is peace and love, quite simply because that is what you are: you want to return to yourself, the true self. 

Its not as much about winning or losing as a polarity, more like resistance and acceptance. You cant accept losing so you resist it, and it causes inner friction. Every form of negativity is always caused by the master reason: resistance. Thats something we all struggle with, but one can improve in acceptance quite a bit over a lifetime. 

Practise acceptance, practise awareness

 

... And check out mr Watts

 

Edited May 3, 2018 by molosku

[NoSelfSelf]

Thats good sports can show you how much ego is there...but you cant control if you win or lose only doing your best in a each moment