Whenever I make certain ways of being/thinking/feeling a problem (and, by implication, elevate some ways of being/thinking/doing as superior to others) I'm acting like a ranking system. I morph into an evaluation mechanism, and divide myself up into warring parts.

There's Good Me. Bad Me. Extraordinary Me. Disappointing Me.  All these categories that are just a reflection of how I perceive the world outside me.)  And the more that internalize this system and the longer I'm in dialogue with myself this way, the farther from my intention I get. Because what happens is not that all the parts of me suddenly fall into line. It's not like berating myself magically inspires the resistant parts of me suddenly rise to the occasion and I magically behave the way I think I ought to behave.

On the contrary. The more I engage with my thoughts and feelings as though all I am is content to be quantified by some omniscient ranking algorithm, the more shallow, narrow, and defended my experience of myself and of others becomes.