The Algorithm Is Not Your Therapist

You can be your own biggest supporter and still act like a stranger gets the final vote on your worth. I sit with a sharp old quote that exposes a modern problem: we’re wired to protect ourselves, yet we keep handing our confidence to titles, salaries, grades, and social media likes. When that happens, self-worth becomes a fragile reflection that changes with every room we walk into and every feed we scroll. 

Transcript

Welcome And The Core Paradox

Wes 0:00

Welcome to another episode of the According to West Podcast, the podcast that explores the depths of human behavior and the timeless wisdom that helps us navigate our own minds. I'm your host Wes, and today we're diving into a profound and challenging paradox of the human condition. The quote, I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others, is a quote that gets right to the heart of our most common anxieties. It points out a fundamental contradiction. We are wired for self-preservation and a deep inherent love of self, but we often surrender our sense of worth to the fleeting and often unreliable opinions of others. We are, in effect, giving away our power. So today, let's unpack this paradox and understand why we do this and more importantly, how we can break free from it and find true inner peace. Let's start by breaking this uh this quote down. The first part, every man loves himself more than all the rest of men. Um this is the this is the simple truth of human nature. Our primary concern is ourselves. We will always prioritize our own survival or our own well-being and our own comfort. Our minds are designed to protect us. This is why when we feel pain, we flinch. And when we feel hungry, we seek food. Simple stuff. We are fundamentally driven by self-interest and have a primal love for our own existence. But the second part of this quote, but yet less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others. This part, this is the paradox. Despite our deep self-love and our primary focus on our own lives, we often allow our own self-worth to be dictated by the external world. We often base our career success on a title or salary, not our own sense of purpose. Why is it that we measure our career success by a title on LinkedIn rather than the sense of purpose in our daily work? Why do we feel like a failure if we don't have a director title by age 30, even if the work we do is meaningful? Humans love numbers because they are easy. Purpose is messy, internal, and hard to explain at a cocktail party. A salary is a number. It's shorthand for value. We use titles and paychecks as a social proxy for competence. We also gauge our attractiveness by how many likes we get on social media. Why do we gauge our beauty by the digital tally of likes from strangers? When you post a photo and wait for the likes, you are essentially outsourcing your self-image to an algorithm. We have moved from I feel good in this outfit, to does this outfit have high engagement rate? On social media, you aren't comparing yourself to your neighbor. You are comparing yourself to a curated, filtered, and airbrushed version of the top 1% of the world. And last, we measure our intelligence by someone else's praise, not by our own intellectual pursuits. Why do we gauge our intelligence by the crumbs of praise dropped by others? Why do we need to get an A on a paper or good job? Boss to feel smart. We become afraid of challenges because a failure might prove we aren't smart enough. True intelligence is an internal fire. It is the curiosity that drives you to read a difficult book just because you want to understand the world. But when we prioritize praise, we stop following our curiosity and start following the approval path. We study what we think will make us look small rather than what actually feeds our souls. In a sense, we look to others to tell us who we are instead of looking within. We give more weight to a stranger's fleeting judgment than to the deep intimate knowledge we have of ourselves. This is a profound contradiction. It's like a king who owns a castle of immeasurable value, but willingly abandons it in favor of a shack. Just because someone else told him the shack was better. Why do we fall into this trap? What drives this behavior? It's a complex mix of psychology and social conditioning. One could be the it could be the need for belonging. Humans are social creatures, our survival for millennia depended on being part of a tribe. The opinions of others were a matter of life and death. While that's no longer the case, the impulse remains. We still have a deep evolutionary need to be accepted and to belong. And the opinion of others is a primary tool for measuring that acceptance. The fear of isolation. The opposite of belonging is isolation, which is a powerful and painful human experience. We are afraid that if we don't live up to the expectations or opinions of others, we will be rejected. And that fear, that fear of rejection can be a powerful motivator. The ease of external validation is very tempting. Looking for external validation is often easier than doing the hard work of building internal work. It's a shortcut. It's much simpler to post a photo and get a hundred likes than it is to sit quietly and build a deep, unshakable sense of self-worth based on your own values. It's a quick hit of dopamine, a temporary fix that ultimately leaves us feeling empty. And there's also the impossibility of seeing ourselves objectively. We are our own horse critics. We see all of our flaws, our mistakes, and our insecurities. So we seek an objective measure, a mirror in the eyes of others. The problem is the mirror is often distorted, fleeting, and unreliable. This quote isn't just an observation, it's a call to action. It's an invitation to break free from this paradox and find our strength where it truly lies. How do we do that? Well, for one, we can start by reclaiming our authority. The first step is to recognize that you are the sole authority of your own work. No one else has your perspective, your experience, or your values. You are the only person who knows if you are acting with integrity, if you are being kind or if you are living in alignment with your purpose. This means consciously deciding that your own opinion of yourself is the only one that truly matters. We can also start by living a life of worthy values. The way you build a high opinion of yourself is by living a life you can be proud of. This means focusing on internal, virtuous values instead of external, fleeting ones. For an example, are you honest? Are you kind? Are you disciplined? Are you contributing to the world? You don't need anyone to tell you if you are doing these things. Your own conscience is the most reliable judge. When you live a life of worthy values, your self-worth is unshakable. Because it's built on a foundation of character, not public opinion. And lastly, using others' opinions as data and not law. This doesn't mean you shouldn't, this doesn't mean you should ignore others completely. Their opinions can be valuable data points. For an example, if many people are giving you the same constructive feedback, it's well as to listen. But their opinion should be treated as data, something to consider, not as law, something to obey. You are the final arbiter of your own life and your own worth. My whole college uh experience was that. Right, straight from trying to get into college. Um GPA wasn't good. School counselor advised I go on and, you know, and advised against college and maybe I should get a trade. Didn't do that, like fuck her. What does she know? Get to college and you know, went to community college and did that and did quite well. When it's time for the four-year, well, when it's time for the bachelor's program at another college, uh sometimes these universities they have you taking their classes for money, and one of the classes was like a um a class on how to uh use their internal knowledge base for research and things of that nature. And I it wasn't four grade, but it was like, yo, you had to take it, and I barely just fumbled through that, you know, doing what I can, not paying attention, stuff like that. And the admissions office, the advisors and admissions in the admissions office, once again, one of those situations. Oh, you're going into computer science. I mean, if you're uh having a hard time doing this, maybe you shouldn't be in school. I was like, yo, just sign me up for the classes, like fuck it, I'm paying for it. Like, what are you talking about? And yeah, their opinions were opinions and not actually data. I mean, it could be used for data, like, hey, uh, pay attention and uh try harder once you start these classes, but I never took it as law because I knew me. I knew what I was about, and that's essentially what this is saying. Like, if you can if you know your base of who you are, what your worth is, and and and what you're about, nobody can tell you otherwise. So the quote, I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than of the opinion of others, is a timeless mirror held up to our own behavior. It shows us where we are giving away our power. By understanding this paradox, we are given a choice to continue living a life where our self-worth is a fragile reflection in the eyes of others, or to build a life where our self-worth is a rock solid reality built from the strength of our own character. Thank you for joining me on the According West Podcast. Until next time, may you find strength and peace by valuing your own opinion of yourself above all others.