The Power of Belief

Last night, I was lying awake in bed with several trains of thought going through my head. The first one was self-deprecation and negativity towards my self-image. I continued on my self-destructive path of thinking of myself as ugly, incompetent, and a failure. Then I did what I always did: blamed my problems on my parents. I kept thinking about what they did to me and how I would have been different if my parents had been different. Then I had another thought arc that I thought was unrelated to the first two arcs. I began thinking about how strongly people's beliefs influenced them. I was thinking this more in the vein of objectivity and subjectivity, in a postmodernist perspective. I thought about science and religion, how religious belief can really shape a person's worldview and how science strives for objectivity. Then I thought about how there was no way someone could be purely objective since to be human IS to be subjective. There is no way to measure something perfectly or to make observations without filtering it through one's background and biases. Then I thought about how even scientists can miss out on important details because they were never trained to look for those details, hence they "miss" a part of reality. Then I thought about religious people and how they often relied on something greater than themselves to help them make sense of the world. Some people actively engage in religion even though they know full well that it may all be some grand delusion. "Religion is a useful fiction," Matthew once said. And it's true. I mean, if every human being just died out right now, would "religion" still exist? Probably not. For some reason, I don't think it's likely that any other organism on the planet would make up their own religion. Something that separates people from other animals is the fact that we have beliefs. And not just that, but our beliefs shape our entire world, our entire reality. Wow, I thought, people's beliefs can influence them a lot. Then I suddenly connected something. I tend to believe that I'm ugly. And incompetent. And will never amount to anything. And yes, part of that comes from my parents, but they can't possibly be to blame for everything that has ever happened to me. Well...what if I changed my beliefs? I mean, I don't need to radically switch to thinking that I'm beautiful or that I'm going to be good at everything I do, but how about this: I start believing that I'm worth something. I start believing that I am not the ugliest girl on the planet and that I won't fail at everything I do. I can start believing that I am human, just like everyone else, and yes, I do make mistakes and I do have bad hair days, but I'm also competent and good and adequate most of the time. And maybe my beliefs will change me.