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Key points
- Your self-image is integral to your happiness.
- How you look in the mirror reflects how you are in the eyes of others.
- Diet and physical activity impact your self-esteem.
- Looking good helps you feel better about yourself.
In his late 30s, Mr. Saddington described himself as a “three-dimensional loser”: scammed out of his money, a broken marriage, 30 pounds heavier than he was the year before. “I’m a basket case,” he told me. “I even look like a basket.” Okay, maybe a basket with three-days’ growth.
But it wasn’t a joke. Mr. Saddington felt helpless and alone, so embarrassed by his plight that he dreaded seeing anyone he knew. He took down his Facebook page, and hid his profile on LinkedIn. He didn’t want to be found. He cultivated self-pity.
While still practicing accounting at a respected firm, Mr. Saddington had invested in a client that the firm dropped when its securities fraud was finally uncovered. He had suspected fraud before the firm acted, but thought he’d make a killing and get out before anything became public. The investors took his money and ran, leaving him to sputter that he’d been careless. When the authorities came down on the investors, his firm cut him loose.
He wasn’t sure what he could do for a second act, and he’d moved into a studio in Astoria to save money. “I don’t really need more space, since my wife left me. She said that I ruined our life together.” She had filed for divorce. “I can’t face my friends,” she said. She said that she hated him. She called him Fatso.
To say that he was humiliated was an understatement. He compensated with comfort food. It was no surprise how fast he’d put on weight, since he rarely left the house (except to visit the supermarket). He’d stopped running. Mainly, he just sat and contemplated his navel, which was rapidly sinking into a swell of flesh. The ultimate humiliation was when he had to buy Levi’s dad jeans, the ones with an “ample” cut and elastic waist.
When he came to see me, he didn’t quite know what he wanted because he wasn’t sure that anything good was still possible. “Sure, I’d like to be happy again,” he said, “but I don’t know where to start.”
I thought that the easiest place to start was on his self-image—literally, how he saw himself in the mirror. His marriage was irretrievable, and it would be better to look for dates without turning up in extra-wide jeans. So how could he lose weight? He had been an athlete in college. He ran three times a week until he quit when he was fired. He was capable of hard physical activity. Or at least he had been; now he was so out of shape that I was afraid to recommend strenuous exercise. So, I suggested that he ease back into exercise while drastically reducing the calories. I sent him to a dietician.
The point is that he needed a goal, one of many that he’d need to work towards as he tried to achieve some degree of wellness. Moreover, he had to believe he had the wherewithal to reach this goal, that he had the will to work towards it. He had to believe in himself. Did he? I think he was sufficiently repelled by what he saw in the mirror that he was willing to try.
Of course, it’s unfortunate when incentives are negative, but sometimes it’s unavoidable. The fact is that Mr. Saddington had let himself go, and it had happened so quickly that he hardly could have stopped himself. Now he had to start from the place he was at.
But the effort didn’t have to rest solely on his current, negative prospects. I suggested that he envision himself 30 pounds lighter, able to fit into his old wardrobe. I suggested that he envision himself walking into an interview looking good and having dates again. For every incentive founded in regret and negativity, it is worth finding another that assumed a positive outcome. Every “I’ll probably never . . .” needs to be balanced against “What if I can . . .”
So Mr. Saddington joined a health club. But not without a struggle. “Am I even worth rehabbing?” he asked. But I told him that if he really thought the answer was no then he never would have shown up in my office. It was clear that beating up on himself would compound his losses, while investing in himself could help. I say “could” because a week later, when we met again, he still hadn’t gone to the club. The only evidence that he was “worth rehabbing” was prospective and, in that sense, intangible: He “could” be worth it if he allowed himself to reach a place where he was worth it.
Finally, he did. After several weeks, Mr. Saddington began to work out. He rediscovered personal discipline. The challenge now was to keep him from relapsing, which meant that it was important that he see results. I cautioned him not to expect too much all at once, and he appreciated that.
The point was to understand the process. That is, although personal growth demands sacrifice, we can’t just demand an immediate payback. There are psychological dynamics that affect how we approach problems. There’s also our real-world scaffolding—such as money—on which we build our lives. All of these must be managed insofar as they provide pushback or sources of support.
If Mr. Saddington continues towards a semblance of wellness, he may emerge as not the same person he was before his troubles. Wellness is not the same as recovery—it is not simply a return to the status quo ante. It can be, but often it’s a type of self-reinvention, the creation of a more durable model for the self. It means that we’ve come out the other side; the “rehab” (to use Mr. Saddington’s term) was as painful as the condition from which we were rehabbed and, hence, it’s a source of lessons for the future.
No collapse is so total that we can’t begin to reverse it. But we can’t expect any efforts to reverse it to be easy, linear, or even likely to deliver the payback that we’d assumed that it would. We just have to work at being better than when we started the process. We can’t let disappointment derail us. If we begin to like ourselves again, that’s progress.
