IT PAYS TO BE YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND

How many times in our lives do we hear some variation of the phrase "I'm my own worst enemy"?

Probably not enough, considering how truthful and universally-applicable the saying is.

We're the makers of our own destiny, despite what pushers of prevailing victimhood narratives of the day would like us to believe. Success is in our hands, but that also means that the alternative is too.

Nobody has the capability to submarine our hopes, dreams, and desires more so than ourselves. Fear of success-induced change can lead us to indulge all sorts of limiting thoughts and behaviors. There is one narrative in particular that's responsible for countless unpursued dreams and ambitions: I'm not good enough.

Everybody faces this thought at some point in their life. Some develop a hardened, determined psyche in short order, acknowledging self-doubt as a useless, defeating figment of our imagination. Make no bones about it, this is a conscious, practiced decision, not some fate bestowed by the Gods.

Even if these individuals are willing to acknowledge that intelligence, attractiveness, height, charm, and other meaningful attributes are doled out unfairly before they even emerge from the womb, they're determined to level the playing field through relentless ambition, discipline, self-denial, and above all, an uncompromising dedication to a singular mentality: I am good enough, should I choose to be.

They look at their very-real potential to become a self-pitying, rationalizing, ultra-comfortable underachiever and respond with a hearty "no thank you".

But make no mistake, this ain't the easy route. Nor is it the fun route in the immediate term. Choosing to be your own best friend isn't for those who crave immediate gratification. Rejection, doubt, and self-criticism are inescapable shadows that follow most of us throughout life, taunting us into making the easy choice.

Outrunning them means acknowledging they're there, understanding the behaviors that they drive us towards (or away from), and acting in the opposite manner.

First step: understanding how the potential worst enemy in our head tries to sabotage us.

It seep into our decisions about how we look, how we want to look and, in turn, how we feel about ourselves.

"Go for that midnight munchie run to 7/11, you're already far beyond your playing weight, what are a few Skittles and a King-Sized Snickers going to hurt?," it says, or…

"What's fifteen minutes on the treadmill going to do for you that a pizza won't? Don't forget how much your pleasure receptors jump for joy with each bite of a large pepperoni pie!"

The voice pops into our mental office space to dish out completely unsolicited, equally unhelpful advice.

"Yeeeah, I know you were thinking about cranking out that article you've been putting off, and I know it's only four-thirty, but you make your own hours for a reason. It's five o'clock somewhere, buddy boy! Let's blow this joint and hit up Happy Hour before two-for-one Margaritas go the way of grunge, bell-bottoms, and the dodo bird."

This voice is not your friend. It's not even a harmless acquaintance. It's Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot, David Duke, climate change, heart disease, and ebola neatly packaged into one nagging, inaudible adversary, and it's aimed directly at the destruction of your sense of accomplishment and self-worth.

Its mortal enemy is your happiness.

Sure, we can dull these adversarial voices with gym routines, mental delay techniques, competition-based self-improvement contests, and good old self-coaching. But they're always there, nipping at our heels, begging and pleading with us to give in and give up.

Artists, with their often-subjective metrics of quality and effort, can be especially susceptible to indulging the cunning enemy that lives rent-free in their heads.

One of my favorite wordsmiths, a fast-rhyming, frizzily red-haired hip-hopper by the name of Rittz, sums up what so many of us feel when faced with our most self-destructive impulses:

"I'm my own worst enemy, the energy I have's a waste, 'cause I use it battling myself 'cause I'm a basket case."

For us writers, he elaborates on what hyper-critical self-sabotage looks like.

"I'm my own worst critic, and I gotta write an album
But I keep hating on myself, it's like I get obsessed
Cause I hate what I write, say-say something tight
I be thinking too much wondering what they gonna like
I don't got a lot of fans, I'm afraid that I might

Let 'em down if what I make don't relate to them right"

And beyond our profession, there's the basic struggle with the hardships of existence:

"Self, self-pity, self-self pity

Why the f**k is everybody else giddy?

I woke up and felt sh*tty

Matter fact I felt the same all week

Let down like my last album on the shelf sitting…" (Rittz, Basket Case)

I don't mean to co-opt another man's thoughts and rhymes, but hearing songs like Basket Case serve as a crucial reminder that it's not just me who struggles with the critical voice inside. And it's not just you.

We all face these voices, and everybody gives in occasionally. You can bet that even Arnold Schwarzenegger houses a quart of ice cream from time to time. Martin Luther King, Jr. strayed outside of his marriage and Winston Churchill never met a glass of whiskey he didn't like. Which is to say, even those with the most commendable levels of self-discipline — those who made a lifelong habit of ignoring their internal adversary — could not help but give in on occasion.

We can't expect perfection out of ourselves, just as we couldn't reasonably expect it out of MLK, Churchill, or Schwarzenegger. The reality that those we idolize have the same self-defeating instincts reinforces that being our own best friend, or our own worst enemy, is a conscious choice.

Genetic predispositions to addiction, a childhood spent in a family of addicts, and the often brutal blows that life deals may all make the voices in our head — "quit, give up, give in" — louder. The death of our father, mother, brother, sister, or friend can be enough to dash our self-discipline and cry out "what is the point of all of this?".

And many do. But remember this: many don't.

And we remember them because they choose to make their mindset an asset to their success, a catalyst to conquering their dreams. They choose to be their own best friend, instead of their own worst enemy.