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Self-Competition Is a Gambit in a Self-Development Game

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Rustling, quickly-moving, clear-voiced, V. was extravagant and a little disquieting. Large, square face and little grayish eyes – there was nothing soft or gracious about her. Up to everything and down on herself, V. was a splendid actress but didn’t quite believe in it herself. She formed the habit of sticking pins into her dignity. I always felt an impulse to pull out the pins.

Her conversation was of a sort that gave a large license to originality and wittiness. But she accused herself of not being like some other beautiful and successful actress, and that competition she was constantly in with others heated me so that it almost scorched.

Goodness only knew how far from the truth V.’s self-understanding was. She lived in a constant state of competition-stupidity with others and the only salvation I could see was to recharge her self-esteem, and to redirect her competitive spirit on herself.

The winter of 2017 was the toughest in V.’s life. She lost her father (her mom died two years prior) and being the only child, she was now left alone. I came to console and pull her out of that misery she thrashed herself into.

I kicked all the clothes off the bed and chairs, made V. get up and look in the mirror. I was not very picky with words when I held my hand to keep her silent and listen to the voice of reason. At the end of my tirade her smile was irradiation and the best reward I could ever ask for.

V. had a habit of talking to herself in a mocking and resentful key. And I made a goal to change it during the week we spent together in a Turkish all-inclusive hotel by the sea. This trip was a transformation therapy that I prescribed to my friend. My voice sounded in her ears with continuous expressions of love and beauty, serenity and benevolence, exquisiteness and originality of her personality.

I made my best to instill in V. envy to her better-future-self, substituting the raving desire to be somebody else. Only when she took herself and the choices she made in an axiomatic loving and respecting manner was she able to call her life her own. Starting from this turning point any defects became goals—a way to flawless crystal image of her future self.

It was worth the trouble of looking at and admiring my renewed friend. Her features started to express intense intelligence which brought her self-respect back to her eyes and self-love back to her heart. Now the atmosphere about her sent a cheerful warmth and a suggestion of comfort and ease.

V. was wrongly choosing idols from a famous Hollywood crowd, and that was a definite failure. When the wind of self-respect and self-love started to blow in her sails V. became a capital person to be around and to listen to. Now she was brave to be different, courageous to disagree, bold to self-express, and daring to call her-future-self the best person in the world.

She found the best acting teacher in a stand-up women’s comedy show. People praised her, and she rejoiced, friends criticized sometimes, and she was grateful. She started as an out-of-stage minor character and won her way to a leading actress participating in every show in her best disguise. Ingenious people loved her, and slightly shallow minds didn’t understand and avoided her—and that was just the price for being true.

My Father Died From Cancer, and It Taught My Mother to Write

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I painstakingly pieced this story from the several treasured excerpts of her diary

You must have a divine heart to be so full of vigor when life is a misery, filled with it like a precious vase… – Olya Aman

My mother makes beauty beautiful. She dreams in words of love and hope when her life is tragic enough to make my face distort with darkness.

Her life is a sad song for an outsider and a bright red fire for those who have the privilege to know the divine rebellion of her smile and the great resoluteness of her mind.

My mother gifted me with her beautiful diary on my 30th birthday. I painstakingly pieced this story together from the treasured excerpts of her diary.

May 1988: “I buried myself in the full of soul eyes of my dying husband. I know I need to think of my dear child and myself for her sake, but it is so hard to tear myself from his bedside. His sufferings make my heart weep. I wish I could sacrifice myself and save him. His voice rising painfully when he holds my hand and pronounces my name. I quiver with restrained grief and smile to cheer him up.”

My father was going through tormenting sufferings on his way to the end of life. His pain, the result of advanced incurable cancer, was inadequately relieved. The question of surgery was not even possible to discuss. It was too late.

May 1988: “My diary is my salvation. I often write and hold his hand in mine. I put on paper what I feel and fold it in two. I plead and pray to God and hide it in my soul.”

July 1988: “He is in constant pain but looks the very incarnation of quiet bravery and love. Even in his intolerable condition, he strives to carry away my disquietude by talking about the beauty of life after death and the pleasure I should feel on this earth even when he will leave me.”

August 1988: “Whenever he is awake from his tired slumber he asks me to write the messages to daughter so I can deliver it to her when she will grow up to understand the preciousness of every word that was voiced through pain and suffering. I like to listen to his sentiments. I love his extreme good sense, his exquisite taste, and the feeling of life. He urges our girl to be uncompromisingly bold in the defense of her opinion and life principals, to be earnest and keen in pursuing her dreams, and to win the esteem of her mother and father by vindicating her character from any unkind inclination.”

October 1988: “With an agitated, burning heart and brain, I live through every minute of my life without him. How do I dare to live when he is not among the living? The one who in intellect, in purity and elevation of soul, was immeasurably superior to anyone I know. I rush outside to cool my feelings in the balmy winter air, and to compose myself each time I feel the hot tears coming to my throat. The solitude of my garden helps me to put on a gleeful smile to cheer my child.”

December 1988: “The poison of this loss spreads through all my essence. I now recognize its harmful intentions. The serious depth of it may kill life within me. I fight it, turn my back upon it. I seek retirement for my pain in taking care of my girl. She is my salvation. I let my head to be carried away by her childish ideas. There is no better cure like a merry, simple-hearted child — ever ready to cement broken heart, to melt the ice of freezing soul, and overthrow the walls of sorrowful isolation.

March 1989: “My mother is my faithful friend. When I see a flash of love in her eyes, a glow of sincere care on her face — I think that one day I will cease to feel this pain. When throbbing recollection flashes upon me, and a cloud of sorrow darkens my eyes, I talk to her: in person, on the phone, or in my mind, and a moment of inward conflict gives place to quiet conduct. I start to behave with exceeding calmness so that she never had to reprove me once.”

November 1989: “I started my diary with more truth than wisdom. In the beginning, I was still fearing to be rooted to my loss. Often the paroxysm of pain and despair was preventing me from saying what I was intended to say. A torrent of tears stained the pages with misery, and I prayed for forgetfulness. But only memory gave life to my words. Never do I endure so long, so blissful nights as when I write. I go through every moment of happiness and pain all over again. My goal is to keep the fire of my foaming and swelling with emotions life engaging and bright, so it warms the heart of my child when I give it to her to read and remember.”

September 1990: “Smiles and tears are so alike with me. I often cry when there is nothing left but to laugh and smile when I am in bitter grief. My diary is my remedy. I feel graceful easiness and freedom about all I do these days. The expansion that this new activity gives to my mind is so refreshing.”

October 1990: “I cannot stop writing. A broad sea is rolling between my past and present. My soul is forever united to the one that is dead in body but always living in my heart. My husband is my everyday companion. I feel his soothing presence. And this feeling of our reunion is not sad anymore, but rejuvenating.”

My mother started a diary and found consolation in putting her feelings on paper. Writing those down by-the-by brought consolation. It brightened the doomed comprehension of life. The melancholy musings and painful lamentations stayed on paper.

The words of sorrow, written in her diary, purchased solace and tranquility.