A friend recently tried to pump me up by saying, “Hey you are a Columbia graduate, you can do anything!”
Finding my way back to workforce has been an interesting journey. My most recent challenge is to not fall in the comparison game. So my friend, with the best intentions at heart, wanted to motivate me to get out of my way and focus on the present.
I wasn’t really able to bring myself to be proud. I didn’t think it was special. But that got me to thinking.
In my parent’s generation, getting over 70% in 10th grade was special.
When I was at that stage, getting over 90% was special. (I got 89.5, also why I hold a perpetual grudge against whosoever marked my punjabi language exam)
Now, its probably close to a 100%.
Similarly, getting into Columbia during my parent’s generation, might have seemed next to impossible for an Indian middle class small town kid like me.
When I was at that stage, I had no expectation to get in. I didn’t know anyone who had done it. But I got in!
Now, getting into any top school is still difficult, but hopefully for somebody like me at 21, it is not as daunting as it was for me.
I am not eluding to the point of being the “first” of any kind. That’s too high of an opinion to hold for oneself which shouldn’t be assumed this easily.
But what I am trying to ask or contemplate is, why do these past achievements not feel special anymore?
When I scored well in 10th grade, or got a job, it all felt pretty great. But all these feelings started to fade as I saw more people doing the exact same thing.
May be its because when we are slower than we expected, we find time to compare ourselves to the whole world.
May be its because I personally drew my value from being better than my peers.
When your ability and your belief in your talent doesn’t reconcile with the your success trajectory, you then start to question each of your past achievements and pass them off as sheer luck.
The failure in this, isn’t the pace of my journey in comparison to anyone else's or the successes or failures that I have endured.
The failure in this, is the #valuesystem I base myself on. A system that tells me my value in comparison to the peer group I chose.
Of course, there are external factors. Life in general doesn’t allow much in our own control.
But there is something that is in our control, that is our approach to our day.
Every day when I do not give any #power to the voices in my head trying to dismantle my sense of peace, that is a successful day.
Every day I fall into the mire of comparison, finding misery in a peer’s success (and joy in their failure), going down a spiral of self hatred, is a failed day.
As complicated as processing these emotions can sometimes feel like, it can be as simple as that.
You choose your response. And when you choose wrong, don’t panic because a new day is just around the corner.
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