A friend called me the other day to see if I would get a drink after dance class with her because she was feeling sad about something. The something? An acquaintance of hers from high school had just won a Tony Award, and she felt horribly jealous and sad.
And I could relate. I could totally relate because I’ve been feeling the same sense of frustration at the ability of others to succeed in something while I keep looking around for something to succeed in. A few weeks ago my employer hosted its annual explorers symposium. A few of the researchers were still in town this last week for meetings and other events. Walking around the building has been like being surrounded by the over achievers’ club, and it was hard not to feel incredibly unaccomplished and unimportant in comparison.
To make matters worse I arrived home the other night to find my alumni magazine in the mail. I sat down to page through it and as I flipped through the section where they list, by decade of graduation, the updates and special announcements of alumni, one of the pictures jumped out at me. I was trying to figure out why this person looked so familiar, and then I realized that she was one of the researchers that had been honored as an Emerging Explorer by my organization. Her picture has been up on the wall in our office for a few weeks and I must have walked by it 50 times. She received her bachelor’s degree the same year as me.
And I’m not sure why that bugged me so much. It’s not that I want to do what she’s doing, or that I specifically want to do what any of the scientists or explorers at our symposium are doing. I think I would just like to feel like I had discovered something that I really want to do, and that I had gone for it, instead of chipping away at a series of jobs that are jobs and nothing more.
The same issue of my alumni magazine featured an article of about “globally competent” students who are traveling the world in search of work experience and adventure. I couldn’t even read the article, because as it turns out, the one thing I always hoped I would have accomplished by this point in my life is to have lived abroad and the fact that I haven’t still makes me feel horribly insecure and uninteresting. Just before our explorers symposium at work a coworker celebrated her last day at work – she’s heading off to Paris in the fall to do a master’s degree there. I was so horribly jealous that I could barely choke down the chocolate croissant at her going away party (barely).
I’ve had the chance to travel a bit, and did do a semester abroad in college. But I always expected that at some point I would move to another country for at least a few years and become proficient in another language. From the time I was very young I had had vague aspirations of living in Europe. And then in college I briefly studied Swahili and dreamed of living in Africa. And more recently I managed to become reasonably proficient in Spanish. But there never seemed to be a specific vehicle for my dream – rather it was just that – a dream, instead of a specific goal with plans.
My friend and I have been talking lately about the difference between someone who succeeds and someone who doesn’t. Does talent play a significant role, or is it simply that one person has a enough self confidence to keep pushing, to keep demanding attention, to keep asking for opportunities, and others don’t? Are they just better at setting goals and sticking to them, even if their talent and competence are no better than anyone else’s?
Am I just as talented and smart as the dancer I know who, while extremely flexible, does not have particularly good technique, yet gets cast despite her relative inexperience and technique simply because of her confidence? (and her amazing legs)? Could I have gone off to Paris to do a masters degree like my coworker?
Why do some people have the resilience to keep trying in the face of either a perceived setback or a lack of encouragement by others, while some of us assume that it’s a sign of or inherent lack of ability?
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