Dear XYZ:

When teachers didn’t select you to sing and dance, when they selected other kids to sing and dance, you felt so very hurt, and angry, and jealous, so very jealous at the kids who were selected while you were left behind. No  wonder you don’t feel compassion for others who you see doing better than you do. It is natural to not wish well to  people we are angry at or jealous of. And then, you got angry at yourself for not singing and dancing well enough to be chosen.

You think little of yourself, think you can’t do much that is right, other than studies. You don’t think of yourself as capable, so you don’t try. The thinking may be something like this: if I try to cook something more elaborate than noodles, I will mess up and then I will feel once again how inferior  I am, how incapable.

“I was always compared against another person and my achievements were always downplayed”- I can almost touch your hurt and anger over all these years, as this happened, again and again.

I suggest that you accept your failure being compared to others and exit that competition. Then enter a different kind of world where you compare yourself today to who  you were yesterday. Yesterday you didn’t light a matchstick. Today you will, for the first time in your life. The day after you will cook something other than noodles. Every day, do something new that you didn’t do the day before.

Your escape into fantasy is motivated by your great frustration with the practical world of action, from lighting a matchstick to singing. Which brings me to another suggestion, if you haven’t tried it yet: when you are alone, play a song, have the words to the song on your computer screen, and sing along, loudly, with a strong voice.

Exit the competition with other people and trying to prove yourself to other people. Enter a competition between yourself of today and yourself of yesterday. Prove yourself.. to yourself.

Let me know how it feels, when you do these things I suggested, will you?

anita