is repeated in countless ways in the scriptures and classics of other world religions:
 âSince all the disasters, sufferings, and fears in the world come about from the grasping to a self, then how is this grasping beneficial to me? Without abandoning the self, suffering cannot be abandoned, just as without avoiding fire one cannot avoid being burnedâ (Shantideva, Buddhism). 10
 âAbove all the grace and the gifts that Christ gives to his beloved is that of overcoming selfâ (Francis of Assisi, Christianity). 11
 âHe who attends to his greater self becomes a great man, and he who attends to his smaller self becomes a small manâ (Mencius, Confucianism). 12
 âThere is an irreducible opposition between the deep transcendent self that awakens only in contemplation and the superficial, external self that we commonly identify with the first person singular. We must remember that this superficial âIâ is not our real self. It is our âindividualityâ and our âempirical self,â but it is not truly the hidden and mysterious person in whom we subsist before the eyes of God. The âIâ that works in the world, thinks about itself, observes its own reactions, and talks about itself is not the true âIâ that has been united to God in Christâ (Thomas Merton, Christianity). 13
 âOwing to ignorance of the rope, the rope appears to be a snake; owing to ignorance of the Self, the transient state arises of the individualized, limited, phenomenal aspect of the Selfâ (Shankara, Hinduism). 14
While our unique individuality serves as a starting point, it cannot function as the end-all of the quest to âknow thyself.â To move beyond our fascination and attachment to our particularity, we must gain an appreciation for what we share with all the other somebodies out there.
N EVER S OMEBODY E NOUGH
The need to feel special is not in and of itself special. We all want to portray ourselvesâto ourselves and to othersâas being in one way or another extraordinary . If we donât feel this foundational senseof specialness at all, it is indeed important to find ways to increase our sense of self-worthâand there are plenty of resources available in the therapeutic establishment to facilitate that. And throughout this book, weâll be discussing some surefire methods for increasing self-esteem.
But what we also may start to suspect is that, at a certain pointâafter shoring up the foundation of a necessary and beneficial sense of self-worthâthe interminable pursuit of being somebody can become a heavy load to carry.
If, for example, we believe that our âspecialnessâ derives from what we have achieved rather than from who we really are , we will be forever striving to be important enough, famous enough, rich enough, loved enough, accomplished enough.
The eminent psychiatrist Thomas Szasz noted, âPeople often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self,â Szasz argued, âis not something one finds, it is something one creates.â 15 And it is true that most of us peg some important part of our identity to our accomplishments in whatever arenas of life we deem important. But if we overvalue the idea that self-worth is tied to a created specialness , most of us will never feel we have produced a special enough self.
If we fully buy into an accomplishment-based understanding of selfhood, weâll be perpetually trying, and endlessly failing, to be somebody enough .
When we wholly identify with one or another of the roles we play in the ongoing drama that is life, we may begin to suspect that no matter how successful we areâno matter how many promotions we win, how much money we accumulate, how much praise we receiveâit will never be sufficient. If this is the gauge of self-approval, the bar will always be moving higher; there will always be more hoops