> Perhaps this is due to a combination of frequent life failures, low confidence, and low ability of critical examination.
Ah, nice combination :) Purely anecdotal, I once had very low confidence, but could be very critical to myself. This broke me down quite bad, this was not a good combination. Only after 30 I would learn to not be so negative in my criticism, but be more nice to myself, and I thought I had learned a lot. Just the last few years I learned to just observe situations and myself, and not judge so much, not negative and not positive. Just like I learned from meditation.
I can imagine when having low confidence, it might be so much easier to avoid being critical to yourself. Ofcourse you might then also learn to avoid observing yourself, it feels almost the same. So then you are stuck in some path where you might never get out, you just keep on doing what you did.
Ah, nice combination :) Purely anecdotal, I once had very low confidence, but could be very critical to myself. This broke me down quite bad, this was not a good combination. Only after 30 I would learn to not be so negative in my criticism, but be more nice to myself, and I thought I had learned a lot. Just the last few years I learned to just observe situations and myself, and not judge so much, not negative and not positive. Just like I learned from meditation.
I can imagine when having low confidence, it might be so much easier to avoid being critical to yourself. Ofcourse you might then also learn to avoid observing yourself, it feels almost the same. So then you are stuck in some path where you might never get out, you just keep on doing what you did.