Insecurity- How it Skews Our Perception of Ourselves, Others, and Our Future

(Estimated reading time: 10 minutes)

Life is full of uncertainty. We can feel shaky about what will happen for the next few minutes of our lives, we feel doubtful about ourselves at times, or unsure about the decisions we are going to make. As our minds constantly create thoughts, doubt arises, and it can lead to insecurity. Insecurity is defined as "uncertainty or anxiety about oneself; lack of confidence; the state of being open to danger or threat; lack of protection." (Source: Google search, Oxford Languages) But you might wonder, does everyone have insecurities of some sort? We look at the lives of gorgeous people in the entertainment industry, wealthy and "successful" individuals who achieved their "dreams", or influential people who are seemingly untouched by life's uncertainties. Do supermodels and beauty queens feel insecure about their bodies and how they look? Do the rich feel insecure about their future? Do those influential people ever doubt their abilities? Saying yes to these questions cannot be further from the truth.

But first, why do we think this way? Perhaps we can look back on our history and evolution as humans. Human behavior is complex and can be very difficult to discuss, much less about its development, we can only think of what we will discuss here as one of the possible causes of our behavior, and there are many more factors that contribute to the way we think or act. To begin with, our first ancestors live in a very hostile environment. They live in times when there are predators around as they roam the great wilderness without any protection or shelter. The climate and the terrains they traverse provide uncertain conditions. There is also the scarcity of food and water that endangers their survival. And due to this lack of vital resources, they even had to fight among themselves or other human tribes for the little things they could get. Our ancestors needed to be strong, brave, and fast. They had to be fertile, smart, and resourceful. Failing to have those positive traits meant their survival is in jeopardy. Many of them survived, but their collective efforts mostly contributed to it. They also learned to care for each other, learned that every individual is important, and started to look for those that were weak and incapable. They possessed both good and not-so-good qualities, which include the emotions that we have right now. Time passed by and our ancestors adapt to such hostile conditions and they learn innovative survival techniques. 

But their way of thinking doesn't seem to change that much. And as instability and insecurity continued to surround us throughout our history and as our ancestors passed their genes down to us, we inherited their inclination to focus on dangers and harmful elements present in the environment as part of survival. Because of the uncertainty from the hostile surroundings and even from the own kind, the feelings of insecurity pervade, and it became more complex as modern-day living continues to develop and brings more changes not only to society as a whole but to every individual. We create, modify, and continue to accept a paradigm of acceptability when it comes to strength, beauty, intelligence, wealth, and even happiness, which is also good in many ways for our continued survival. But the pressure we put on each individual to conform to many of those standards that were deeply rooted in the habits of our ancestors and don't seem to change that much since their time can be at times taxing and can even be impractical. But regardless of how we develop or acquire such habits, the inescapable truth is, we all have insecurities, whether we accept them or not, and they can affect us in many ways.

At some point in time, we have a glance at those male and female supermodels with all their seemingly perfect faces and bodies. And up to now, we are basing our standard of beauty on what we see on different media nowadays. But instead of making people accept a positive body perception, looking at beauty magazines has negative effects on many individuals. They can make us feel that we are physically unattractive, inadequate, and ugly. Looking back at our own reflection in the mirror feel we are not enough. It makes us feel insecure about ourselves and makes us think that people will only accept us if we are only thinner, sexier, and prettier. This is but one of the many examples of how society dictates what is pleasing and acceptable, and it is mainly based on the physical attractiveness of a person or how many material possessions they have. The more material things one owns, the more society thinks about how successful that person has come. The definition of success dictated by our modern culture and society puts pressure on many of us. One may stick to a high-paying job which that person might abhor but clings to it because one of her or his acquaintances is earning the same but seems to enjoy the job they both have. That person may think that is then unacceptable to find a more fulfilling job just to keep up with what the other person is doing. Often, we rely on what others say about the choices we make for ourselves. We behave accordingly based on what people around us expect from us. We dress or eat according to what others tell us is good for us. We are afraid of what others might think of us when we differ in our opinions. We let society think for us in many aspects of our lives and we submit to what is socially acceptable even on personal matters. Often, this pressure comes in between conformity and individuality, and most of the time, we sacrifice our preferences even if they cost us our own convenience. It can slowly affect how we choose what things we believe are better for us, and the confidence we have in making certain decisions can decrease. We want to copy the majority of people and adapt various trends to avoid social reprisal and castigation. We fear others' appraisal of us, and we don't want our own insecurities to be exposed. 

There are also negative experiences we have that affect the confidence we have in ourselves or others. Many experiences such as bullying, pressure, and negative criticism can create a distorted image of how we view our worth as a person. Losing a job, the death of loved ones, ending a relationship- these failures, loss, and rejection can have a devastating effect on our self-esteem. Our level of resiliency towards these unfortunate events also poses problems, as we hugely vary in the way we cope with negative experiences. And even the way we accept these losses is dictated by society. We need to be "happy" at all times. Our ideals of what "a good life" means also come to the society we live in. We strive to have the biggest house, the perfect family, the most obedient kids, the prettiest face, the fanciest dress, the sexiest body, and the most high-paying job. Because we rely on what society says about success, we create high standards for ourselves. This perfectionism drives us to achieve more than what we can actually do or have, adding pressure to the insecurities we feel.

Of course, we are not talking about choices here that result in negative ethical repercussions and are downright destructive. What we want to establish here is that insecurity affects us when making some positive choices in our life. Those insecurities can come from the pressure to conform to the standards that our society imposes on us or those rules we imposed on ourselves. Though at times, we can admit that conforming can save us from unpleasant, embarrassing, or undesirable situations. Think of the way we choose what clothes to wear. We want to choose clothes that are appropriate to situations- we have our formal wear for formal occasions, working clothes, and clothes we wear depending on the place we are in like the park, the mall, or the beach. And this is totally fine. 

Still, we think about the appropriateness and acceptability of the clothes we want to wear, and we don't want others to give negative comments just because we dress differently from what people usually wear around us. We can see how conforming then devoid us of self-identity and personality. We surrender our autonomy over the perceived acceptability of our behaviors. The thing is, we don't know what reactions we can receive if we choose certain things that others think are not good for us. We might even cost ourselves with noble experiences that we could have otherwise. What if the thing we want to choose for ourselves and not what others dictate can make us more comfortable, more secure, more confident, and "happier?" What we worry about is if we choose to be different we became alienated because of this. And this can lead to feelings of not belonging or being weird, unimportant or uninteresting, or not good enough or inadequate. We then create for ourselves rigid and often high standards of behaving especially when we interact with others, thinking that if we follow through with those rules, we will feel more secure. But because of our fallibility, we beat ourselves up and become anxious for failing to realize those lofty criteria we put on ourselves. This feeling contributes to our dissatisfaction and affects our well-being in general. And it is not only our own self that we can affect with feelings of insecurity. If we feel insecure, chances are we throw our inadequacy to others to mitigate the negative feeling it accompanies. We put restrictions on how others around us should behave based on our own standards and believe that everyone should follow them as well. 

Think about how we expect our friends to reciprocate the same loyalty to us the way we show loyalty to them. It is not a bad thing but what if they fail or disappoint us at some point in our friendship? Is it easy for us to have the same confidence that we had before they fail us? And what basis do we have to judge their loyalty to us besides the definition of being loyal that we create for ourselves? Do we follow our own measures of loyalty devotedly? It is easy to condemn others for their own inadequacy but we fail to recognize that what we are doing is imposing criteria that we create for ourselves and judge others based on them, no matter if we follow them or not. More often than not, we feel disappointed because our criteria can be so high, leaving us to continue into the cycle of questioning our worth and being more insecure with ourselves or with others.

Many articles give numerous pieces of advice on how we can fight the feeling of insecurity, but this is not one of them. And this may not have the full scope of discussion about insecurity. We all have the liberty to choose what can make us feel more confident and worthy. What we want is something to think about. For one, we cannot please everybody. Everyone has their own taste and preferences. The standards of behavior change from person to person. If we always think of what others say is good for us, we will lose our identity and autonomy. Our society continues to change and so are our standards of behavior. When it comes to worrying about what other people may think about us just because we do not behave as we think they expect from us, chances are, people think more of their own insecurities rather than the ones we fear about ourselves. At times, it is good to avoid any changes that may alienate us from the group we want to belong to. But to think about it, if our so-called "friends" are causing us to feel guilty over the choices we make, then, maybe it is about time to rethink our relationship with them. Insecurity can be crippling and it can affect us in making better decisions for ourselves, but we can do something about it by thinking about how it affects us and making positive changes to gain confidence and feel more resolute in life, no matter how uncertain it is.

Insecurity- How it Skews Our Perception of Ourselves, Others, and Our Future by Leandro Angelo Castro is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.