Are you happy being you?

I’m not really asking – that would be obnoxious, implying you’ve reasons not to embrace who you are. I’m just curious how many folks are satisfied with their outcomes, “comfortable,” as the phrase goes, “in their skin.”

I’m not. I annoy, sometimes infuriate myself. I can’t follow orders, my own especially. I must hound myself to do chores. I’ve a task, I know I’ll do it eventually, yet here I am wasting energy and zest resisting the assignment. Age 74, I’m still a surly kid plotting to “get away with” pointless violations.

Then there’s my arrogance. It comes in waves. I preach humility, feel it, then overhear myself crowing over some supposed accomplishment. I’d cuff myself, only that’s awkward.

Then there’s my selfishness. When I don’t need more, I want it. I mostly chide myself back into line, but why should I need to?

I blush to recall the bad habits I can’t shake – and my superstitions.

These grievances do not amount to self-hatred. I’ve got my good points. I yearn in the right direction. I abound in affection and delight. In a crisis I can count on myself. I’m not a slug. I could befriend myself, making allowances. But as my own supervisor I award myself a middling grade, in the C-plus/B-minus range. My faults I view as flaws, not crimes, my leniency itself a fault.

Why can’t I up my game, I wonder? I know what to do, I just don’t. As T.S. Eliot put it, “After such knowledge, what forgiveness?”

One consolation for my consternation is the caliber of my fellow sufferers. Shakespeare is the laureate of self-loathing:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedWhen, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,I all alone beweep my outcast state,And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,And look upon myself and curse my fate,Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,With what I most enjoy contented least;Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising…

Shakespeare’s protagonists, like their creator, let themselves down.

This quarrel – between an ideal and actual self – is a human disturbance. Dog-pal Henry thinks we’re nuts. He has one self, not several to choose from. He applauds Pope’s famous line, “Whatever is is right,” while chuckling to recall the grump who wrote it. Pope’s bitter satires evoke an opposite motto: “Whatever is is wrong.”

Discrepancy between selves is the cause of art. We create preferable worlds to exonerate ourselves for our behavior in this one.

My tug-of-war with myself wearies us both. Many the day I’ve “had it up to here” with being me. But would I abandon this self in favor of a better version? Not a chance. For I – and only I – contain the treasure of my experience. Only I have learned what I’ve learned and felt what I’ve felt. Only I have this bride, these children and grandchildren, these friends, this (Henry’s staring at me) dog. Only I have you reading these words I’ve made. It’s a pain being me but how much worse not to be!

As my experiment in being speeds toward its conclusion, I thank my lucky stars to have been who I was, living when I did. My gratitude way outweighs my dissatisfaction. Self-battering has bettered me and supplied me a story I keep trying to tell. My faults have been my professors. As the poet Rilke is supposed to have said, quitting his sessions with Dr. Freud: “Don’t take my devils away because my angels may flee too.”