As for myself, I am over 6 feet tall when I measure myself when I get out of bed in the morning. Afterwards when the night comes along, that height does decreased to less than 5’11.5″ , sometimes down to even 5′ 11.25″ . I remember maybe 3 years ago that I would measure my height every day in the morning when I woke up. I drew a horizontal line to mark where the 6 foot mark was. I was happy when I was over that mark , but it would obviously drop down as the day went on. I found myself always wondering, always checking, always in some state of deep anxiety. Of course during that time, I recently lost my job with no relationship so I was left to my own imagination to keep my days filled so maybe my brain decided to create some project for me to take on.

I realize now that my desire to increase my height and become taller may not be completely logically justified. I am currently living in an Asian country where the average height of adult men seem to be around 5’8″-5’9″.

I actually remember when I was 13 years old and realizing that I was a lot taller and bigger than other people in my class. I would look at a class photo and think I was a freak for being so much taller and bigger than the other people in my class and wished that somehow I could squeeze myself back down to the ordinary size of the others. I remember nights wondering what it would be like to be smaller, faster, and more agile like a ninja that could climb walls, jump over buildings, and fly in the air. When I think about why I am dissatified with my own height and why I desire to be even taller I realize at some level that my desire to become physically bigger than other people is mainly because I have failed to be mentally superior to other people. Every person who I have ever tried to compare my intellect with has achieved more, created more, and have been educated better than me. A part of me is very insecure and uncomfortable to know that I never managed to get the type of professional success that I always secretly wished for.

From a very early age in my life, the family that I was raised in prized and values intellectual and mental power and ability over all else. I believed in the idea that my sense of worth was determined by how intelligent I was. Thoughout my elementary and middle school days, I was consistently ranked as a tope student and I felt good about myself because I was good in school . The values I had correlated well with my performance in life so I was happy. At some point later on in my High School days, I developed some strange ideas and decided that I wanted to become either an acetic or monk because I had read so many books on spirituality and eastern philosophy. I lost all desire to do well in school and almost dropped out of High School. Through most great help by my parents, I managed to barely finish High School but by then, all of my old academic achievements were destroyed and I suddenly realized that my future looked grim. Some how I got into a respectable state school and went into the an applied sciences field and pushed myself to be the best in school. I wanted to prove to myself and others that I was not going to be a loser, a failure in life because I was stupid.

After 5 years later and giving up on trying to get a double degree in two types of engineering, I had done well enough to give myself the type of validation to say that “Yes, I am good enough. I am worthy to be respected, befriended ,and maybe even loved.” It would take only about 9 months into my first job out of school before the company lost all the funding and I lost what I thought was the best job for a person like me. It was at that time that my own sense of worth was deeply questioned again. Thus, my subconscious probably told me to look for something within me or about me that I could have some form of pride or self esteem about, something which is permanent and can not be changed or taken away, unlike a job which had defined me for so long. Since I found that I seemed to be taller than average, I focused back on that and wanted to be so much bigger, so much taller than others so that I could have at least that one thing to claim that makes me feel special and unique about myself. At the same time, I had discovered that my entire dating life and history was nonexistence but that could be drastically improved on. I decided to identify myself with something which I thought I could become extemely good at but also be separated away from the people who I felt I could never compete intellectually with.

I wanted to win at some aspect of life which could make me feel better about myself. If I could not be the smartest person in the room or the most accomplished I can be the tallest person in the room and have the best looking, most amazing girlfriend.

When I now think about how my thinking went and why I did what I did I realize that a part of my thinking makes total sense from a Psychology point of view. Maybe it just took some time and life to fully realize that I can not be the best at everything or that I could be the best at even one thing.