One of my favorite internal pastimes is to compare myself to others. From where I sit it's as self destructive a habit as drinking, smoking or doing drugs - but it's a far more intangible behavior pattern to break. After all, the eternal analysis of whether I'm better or worse than you is an internal monologue has kept me company my entire life. In instances where my brain has generously let me eke out slightly ahead of you, my sense of self was falsely plumped - like a collagen injection to an Orange County housewives' lips, the effect was immediate, powerful but fleeting. When my insecurities would return, my inner critic would insist I'm like those lips when they need a new injection: flaccid, deflated and inconsequential. I'd need more of a charge to rev up the ole ego - almost like a drug - one is too many and there is never enough.
What am I saying?
I'm needy.
This hamster wheel inside me needs you to tell me how to feel. If I am surrounded by people who encourage me, affirm me and say things like "oh you're so funny" or "what would I do without you" I feel whole. Needed. Part of. When I get stern looks or someone's brow furrows when I've voiced an opinion, when the guy doesn't ask me out or when I don't understand what you've said but act like I did, the deflation is palpable. I can literally hear my thoughts start in and I instantly start telling myself I'm not good enough.
I truly hate this about myself. Of course, admitting there's something about me that I hate is vulnerability at its core. It's also the essence of low self esteem - self loathing? Please. But it's lying to say I don't battle this every minute of every day. Hating it, in my opinion, is an improvement - because at least I acknowledge that it exists. It's pretty extensive growth to then say in any kind of public forum that it not only exists but I'm not in denial about it - I admit it's a fundamental issue holding me back in every single facet of my life. Giving my power over to you to inform my opinion of myself is so dangerous - it's what drove my choice of career, it's what drove me to marry an abusive man, it's what fueled a voracious appetite for drugs and alcohol and it's what drives my continual need to please which really pisses some people off and attracts the wrong people.
Tonight I attended an intellectual lecture given by a Pulitzer Prize winning author. Even if all I did was listen to the man speak it was an incredible opportunity to learn and expand my intellectual capacity. As a staff member of the hosting facility, I am reporting on the event for a newsletter and a literary journal. That, also, is an incredible opportunity - I am so fortunate that my personal hobby is to write but that I get to translate this passion into my professional life, as well.
The author got his PhD from Yale in classics. So at the root of this lecture I'm already out of the park - there's a fair comparison in this instance that would put me on the "less than" column - first of all I'm at least 40 years younger than he is, but I studied at a Big Ten school, in the journalism department, and I only have a Bachelor's degree - but I am working on my Master's right now. I didn't take one second of Greek mythology in any class ever. I have no foundational knowledge of the lecturer's points of view so I felt a little like I was racing to keep up.
I've been told I have a fairly high intelligence by people who care about that sort of thing. I do need to be reinforced on a somewhat frequent basis that I'm smart but that's less my concern than whether I'm liked. Somewhere I learned that I'm smart enough, even though when I compare credentials in an apples-to-apples context I usually don't come out impressive. I'm good with that - I can't go back and re-do history. I came from such a chaotic alcoholic home that the fact that I went to college at all is pretty much a miracle. So it is what it is and if I've ever been judged not good enough I know I have choices to just find environments that appreciate what I can offer intellectually.
In fact that's probably why I shied away from becoming a reporter and opted for the advertising/public relations/business route. Fear. I've always wanted to ask questions but immediately shot down my own questions as "stupid." But in a lecture environment such as I was in tonight - there were questions on my mind that I wanted to ask but judged them and didn't want to seem out of my box, but then others asked them. I have the writing ability - there's no doubt in my mind that I am a good writer. But look at how the fear of asking questions has prevented me from doing what I'm ultimately supposed to do! By the way, my talents have not been wasted in any of my professional endeavors, but there have been decided brick walls I've faced and it's occurred to me over the years to ponder whether I'd have hit those same walls if I'd pursued a more traditional writing career.
I met someone tonight who did exactly that - he attended the University of Chicago and moved to New York and is a fairly successful journalist and author of a critically acclaimed book compatible with the intellectual capacity of tonight's speaker. In fact, they know each other and they travel in the same circles. I am exactly the same age as this person and I we had a really very nice conversation. But the "not good enough" train started in pretty early so when he invited me to join him and some of the other 'inner circle' people for dinner, I feigned a prior engagement and left. I didn't think I could keep up in the conversation. I might have been able to and I might not - but now I'll never know. Isn't that sad. I am sad for me that I let that painful neediness drive even the most basic of decisions. I hope someday I can grow past this.
This journalist I reference spoke of his initial passion to throw thunderbolts at those in power, similar to the evening's guest lecturer, only about 40 years later. He said he was inspired by the Pulitzer Prize winner's courage and remarked that his faith had something to do with it.
Faith.
This is a concept new to me only within the last five years - the idea that there's something out there showing us the way - guiding us through scary things and celebrating with us when we're happy. It's throwing up neon signs and red flags pointing us away from danger and it's turning every single green light on when we're supposed to move forward. Often the fear and the green lights are combined - the fear being the blinders preventing us from seeing the green lights. And in my case, there are often entire mountain ranges put in front of me suggesting I avoid a tricky situation, but I'm stubborn enough to scale the highest heights and self-will right over that range, heading directly towards a treacherous personal situation.
But what a Pulitzer Prize winning author possesses is faith. He uses this faith to have the courage to speak against human rights offenses, racism and other abuses of those in power against the American people.
I have a friend who claims I'm one of the most courageous people he's ever met so I know that I must have a little faith. It's true that in order to come down off the highest heights of those mountain ranges I crossed based on the merits of my own personal mettle, it's required a tremendous amount of courage to see me through the resulting scary times I had to face while things normalized. I've been unemployed with a tremendous amount of financial insecurity, I've been underemployed and underutilized at work and had my ideas rejected countless times, I've been rejected for jobs I thought I really wanted, I've picked the wrong men and have a number of failed relationships including a divorce, I've had to tell overbearing people no and lived through a resulting shit storm of very low level behavior. These personal triumphs don't really translate to a resume and what I think I'm hearing from the universe is it's time to put the courage I used to get through these tough times to use in a professional context. Stop comparing myself to others and ask the questions. Stop listening to my inner critic preventing me from writing in a professional context. Stop thinking others are better than me because their resumes look better - mine looks great! And try to replace some of the negative self talk with some positive messages, or at the very least, some faith.
One more thing the speaker said tonight that resonated - he said President Lincoln wasn't a good writer until he became President, and that's when his intellectual and spiritual capacity deepened. Spirituality as the path to professional accomplishment - I'll have to continue to figure out how that might apply in my writing and fitness endeavors, and certainly to help me through tough times I have with interpersonal skirmishes that come up with coworkers.
No comments:
Post a Comment