07.09.2026 What we do bashfully and why we feel ashamed

Why do we feel ashamed?

Shame is actually a strange feeling. Sometimes a person is ashamed not of something they did but of imagining someone else seeing what they did. A movement that is perfectly natural when you are alone in a room suddenly turns wrong when a pair of eyes is turned on you. So inside shame there is not only the thing we did. There is also an audience. Sometimes we are even more ashamed of how we look in the audience's mind than of what we did.

Maybe that is why one of the most intimate feelings of a person is not shame but thinking about how they look in someone else's eyes.

As children we fall and we look around right away. Before checking whether it hurts, we check whether anyone saw us. When we cry we hide our faces. When we give a wrong answer we lower our heads. When we want something we lower our voices. As if a person learns other people's gaze before they even learn to speak.

Then we grow up.

This time maybe we do not fall, but we still look around.

We want to do a job and we say, "What will people say?" We are about to ask for a fee and we think, "Am I asking for too much?" We are about to talk about our success and we immediately attach a diminishing tag to the end of the sentence. "It's really not that big a deal." "A bit of luck too." "Anyone could have done it." As if accepting our success as it is would be taking someone's due.

Sometimes a person tells even the good things in their own life in a whisper.

When you think about where this comes from, the matter gets a little stranger. Because we were mostly taught that we have to choose between being good and being modest. If you know a lot you are arrogant, if you want a lot you are ambitious, if you earn a lot you are materialistic, if you talk about yourself you are conceited, and if you keep quiet you are a doormat.

Then a strange person comes out.

Someone who has to prove themselves but cannot explain themselves.

Someone who has to succeed but cannot show their success.

Someone who has to be strong but cannot make their strength known.

Someone who wants to make money but is ashamed to talk about money.

Someone who wants to be loved but hesitates to say they want love.

And in the middle of all this they try to build a life.

Perhaps the biggest censorship mechanism in a person's life is not society. It is the editor society has placed inside us.

After a while nobody says "don't do that" to us. We say it to ourselves.

"Don't talk like that."

"Don't make it so obvious."

"Hold back a little."

"Don't look too assertive."

"It's shameful to want this."

"Saying this doesn't suit you."

"What will people think?"

And one day we notice that most of the people who stopped us in our lives are not even beside us anymore.

But their voices are still with us.

I think this is where the bitterest side of shame begins. Because some people leave our lives, but the way they looked at us stays inside. We borrow the eyes of someone who once looked down on us and keep looking at ourselves with them. We turn the sentences of the people who judged us into our inner voice.

Then we begin to live like a guest in our own life.

We explain ourselves even when buying something.

We find a reasonable cause even when going somewhere.

When we achieve something, we immediately explain why it is not that important.

When we like someone, we try not to show it.

When we want something very much, we act as if we do not want it.

Because wanting leaves a person defenseless.

When a person truly wants something, the possibility of hearing "no" in return arises. Maybe that is why some people find not wanting safer than being rejected. Some never apply. Never make an offer. Never say it. Never begin.

Then they call it fate.

Yet maybe it was not fate.

It was only shame.

I see this more nakedly in working life. A person develops themselves in a field for years, learns a lot, puts in serious effort, but when it comes to saying "I do this well," their tongue is tied. Because we were taught that doing our work well is enough. Yet working life rewards not only those who do good work but those who can make the value of their work visible.

I build digital strategy. There are times when, seen from outside, it looks like nothing more than coming up with a few ideas. Yet behind a strategy there is sometimes a thinking process that stays unseen for days. Data, user behavior, the market, competitors, content, search intent, brand voice, conversion, risks, possibilities... To understand why one thing should be done, sometimes you have to understand why dozens of things should not be done.

But seen from outside, most of the time only the result is visible.

And I think one of the things that really wore me out over the years was this: struggling not so much with the work I did as with what I did not being seen.

Because unseen effort tires a person in a different way.

If you do not know something, you can learn it. If you cannot do something, you can work at it. If you are lacking in some area, you can improve yourself. But if what you do is constantly being made invisible, after a while you begin to doubt not only your work but your own perception.

"Am I really good?"

"Is what I do not that important after all?"

"Could anyone do this?"

Here another kind of shame is born.

Being ashamed even while believing in your own effort.

I lived this for a long time. To succeed I did not only work, I also had to learn for myself how to work. There were periods when information was given piece by piece, when you could not reach current information on time, when you had to learn even the simplest job sometimes by being scolded. There were times when, instead of teaching you the information, someone blamed you for not knowing it.

And the strange thing is this:

Sometimes a person is ashamed of not knowing things that were never taught to them.

Yet they were not someone who did not know.

It had not been explained to them.

I think we need to re-examine some of the shames in our lives.

Because perhaps some of the shames we have carried for years do not belong to us.

They are an inheritance someone left us.

The sides of us that a teacher, a manager, a family, a circle, a society found "too much."

Too smart.

Too assertive.

Too emotional.

Too successful.

Too ambitious.

Too beautiful.

Too visible.

Too free.

Too much themselves.

Sometimes a person is ashamed not because of being themselves but because they notice the discomfort that being themselves creates in others.

Maybe that is why we shrink beside some people. Our voice changes. Our shoulders drop. Our sentences soften. Suddenly we begin to show less than we are.

And we take it for politeness.

Yet not every stepping back is politeness.

Some stepping back is a person abandoning themselves.

Now I am more curious about this:

What should I really be ashamed of?

Taking what is someone else's by right?

Knowingly hurting someone?

Doing an injustice?

Or living my own life the way I want?

Perhaps growing up is not leaving shame entirely. It is changing the source of shame.

If I used to be ashamed of expressing myself, now to be able to be ashamed of not expressing myself.

If I used to be ashamed of failing, now to be ashamed of never having tried.

If I used to be ashamed of wanting too much, now to be ashamed of giving myself up just because others will be uncomfortable.

If I used to shrink my success, now to be ashamed of shrinking the effort I gave for years.

Because perhaps the greatest disgrace a person can bring on themselves is to diminish their own life for the sake of others' comfort.

And I no longer want to do some things bashfully.

Defending my own effort.

Saying what I am good at.

Saying "I don't know" when I don't know.

Saying "I was wrong" when I am wrong.

Not acting as if I do not want something when I want it.

Not shrinking my success when I succeed.

And not turning myself into a smaller version because somebody will be uncomfortable with it.

Because perhaps the biggest freedom in a person's life is not the moment they notice that nobody is looking anymore.

It is the moment when, whoever looks, they do not avert their own eyes from them.