Prince Or Beggar? How To Find Your Place In Life

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

With the feeling that “I am in the wrong place” or “I am in the wrong place” clients come to consultations quite often. Yes, and to me, as a living person, this feeling is also familiar - some time ago I was experiencing my personal crisis with such a “chorus”. Sometimes the question of one's own "relevance" sounds even more acute - "I am not living my life." The problem of losing one's place in life extends, as a rule, to those areas that can be attributed to social - status, career, success, financial well-being … The feeling of inappropriateness works in both directions - it can also be an impostor syndrome, when a highly qualified specialist thinks that that his merits are "exaggerated", and the feeling of his own underestimation, vegetation.

The "impostor" believes that he is misleading others about the level of his professionalism. He is haunted by an irrational fear of exposure, and the arguments of reason remain unheard. A person suffering from impostor syndrome may have a scientific degree, a whole box of diplomas and certificates, but this only temporarily gives him a sense of peace. He is in a constant race with no winners.

An underappreciated person suffers from the fact that his merits are invisible, he feels left out, he considers the environment hostile. As a rule, it has an external locus of control regarding problems, and an internal one regarding achievements. That is, in case of success, he himself is a fine fellow, and in case of failure, “the envious people did harm”.

Both will react painfully to criticism, and the "impostor" will gnaw at himself, and the "underestimated" will take up arms against the critic. Another similar point is that neither one nor the other has adequate self-esteem. It is either overestimated or underestimated, and, in general, is unstable.

Psychologists successfully deal with this kind of difficulties in clients, helping to harmonize self-esteem, learn to recognize their merits and take responsibility for their failures. However, today I would like to make a small excursion into sociology and highlight such a concept as habitus.

The very concept of "habitus" appeared in the theory of the French scientist Pierre Bourdieu in the 20th century. If you describe it in your own words, this is a sense of one's own place, which appears in a person in early childhood and has its roots in the social environment in which a person grows up and is brought up. Each of us, according to the theory, has an inner sense of what he has the right to claim, what belongs to him (is available to him) by right, and what is not quite for people like him. Habitus forces us to sort the possibilities that open before us as those for which we can claim and those for which we cannot. The habitus is most noticeable in situations when a person is in contact with society, in relation to it with other people, or in its position relative to society as a whole.

In short, there are two polar poles, between which there are still a whole host of options. These poles can be described as follows: on the one hand, there are people who believe that the world around was created just for them. All the best the universe has to offer is theirs by right. They feel able to cope with any, even the most difficult task, and if for some reason they cannot cope, they do not lose their confidence and are ready to make new attempts. At the second pole, people who believe that this world belongs to someone else, but certainly not to them and not like them. The only way for them to live this life without problems is to keep their head down once again and, if possible, try to avoid situations where failure is possible. This approach is based on the theory of social inequality, according to which the origin and wealth of the parental family affect the potential success of a person in life.

Returning to the topic of career, work and professional realization, habitus manifests itself as follows:

• A person does not claim high positions, considering himself unworthy, insufficiently prepared
• He has a rule “not to show himself” - not to put forward ideas and not to offer his own options for solving problems, to keep silent and not recognize his merits, hesitate to talk about himself, make publications or show the world the fruits of his labor.
• He does not enter into negotiations regarding the conditions of work or promotion, endures to the last, and if things go very badly, he prefers to quit, but not to defend his rights.
• Selects simpler tasks that can be solved for sure. Saves resource.
• Afraid of big names, big companies. In them, if he gets into, he prefers the role of a "screw", or, if he really cannot hide his mind at all, the role of a gray cardinal.

I think I've talked a lot about princes and beggars. But the title of the article also included "how to find your place in life." In order for our origin and the status of the parental family not to get in the way of realization in society, there is one simple and effective way - awareness. We can only work effectively with what we have been able to bring out of the field of the unconscious into the field of awareness. You can continue to be the son of a cleaner and a chauffeur, occupying a high position and solving the most difficult problems, and begin to be proud of the path traveled, of your achievements, and not be ashamed of your “inappropriateness” and “wrong” family.

If you are haunted by the feeling that you are in the wrong place, are afraid to seem like an upstart, find it difficult to express your opinion or ideas, if you notice that you rate yourself lower than those around you, and this prevents you from living a full life - seek advice. Unfortunately, the analysis of this "basement" is unlikely to be carried out at once, but systematic work for 2-3 months may well allow you to realize your limitations and learn how to cope with them.