99U: By nature, human beings are comparers: our happiness depends, at least partly, on feeling better off than others. Studies have shown that many of us would rather earn more than our co-workers, even if that meant earning less money overall. And we judge our creative output similarly: we deem it a success if it’s as good or better than other people’s.
9 comments:
It's refreshing to hear someone else saying not to focus on everyone else so much. I try to remind myself of this regularly but inevitably I forget. It's hard not to fully compare your work with your peers especially if they are the same people you share your work with on a regular basis. The quality of your work should be based on the personal goals you set for yourself, not on what others do around you. I think something that the article didn't really clarify on was the difference in not being able to realize you are untalented and in gaining confidence. I fell like with a lot of things talented people can gain more confidence in what they do well and not be ridiculously nervous about their work.
Being in our department you tend to compare your work against others and see if you are on the same level as them. Even if we try not to we do it every time. I really like the part about the fact you feel inadequate could mean you are just as good as everyone else. Often times I tend to think that I am not as capable as some of my classmates but then after hearing from the teachers I am capable but just think that I am not. Having self-confidence is a valuable trait and it doesn't just come over night you need to work on it.
Since I'm in a state of constantly wondering if I'm up to par with those around me, it is nice to read that I'm not the only one who feels that way. This program tells us to just do our best, but in reality none of us know what the hell we are doing. It has gotten to the point where half of us have become confident enough to admit to others that we are clueless, and it makes everything much easier. Asking for help has been one of the hardest things to learn here, but it has also been one of the most helpful things.
AMEN! This might just be the best article I have ever read on the green page. Recently, I've been breaking out of working with just my age bracket. I've been in situations where I'm working with people who are much older, much younger, and everywhere in between. The funniest, most comforting, most depressing realization that I have come to is that everybody is faking it. No matter how long you have done your job, or how long you have practiced something, you don't feel like an expert. I've seen people do amazing things, but when they come back from it, they'll always say they feel like they were winging it, or that they don't think it was that good. This is in some ways distressing, but it's also the greatest human bond. Nobody knows why we're here, and we won't ever know, so we're all just trying to do our best with it.
Trigger Warning: Social Media rant pending. If you have an unnatural love of your Facebook page, stop reading here. There's probably some updates you need to catch up on anyway.
Thanks!
OK, now that they're gone, can we all just agree that social media is a waste of time at best and at worst damaging to psychic fabric of our society? Political uprisings in the Middle East notwithstanding, there are so few true benefits of this incessant connectivity as to outweigh the glaring problems, that it seems to me anyone who stopped updating their status long enough to think about it for half a minute would have to opt out. As the author of the article aptly points out, this shallow broadcasting of our lives disrupts and degrades the quality of our lives in the moment, in the sad fulfillment of the requisite postings of every moment that otherwise might have gone simply enjoyed. I would argue that in addition to the problem of self-judgement magnified through the myopic lense of facebook, there is the equally damaging and opposite problem of having immediate and constant access to this forum in which we are constantly begging for and receiving approval of our lives. In terms of just about any metric for personal growth or success, in creativity, in productivity, in personal relations, external approval is only a roadblock. "Seek not approval of man."
This article brings to light a well worded definition of professionalism in general. Most people have to fake it to succeed. We live in a world where not being yourself in order to come off as a strong candidate for most kinds of job positions is near necessary. Obviously, there are a lot of exceptions to this, many of which exist in the realm of theater, however, I feel as if most people are forced into that category. However, when we acknowledge this fact that most people around us are faking it just as we are, it can become somewhat relieving. Not only that, but we can use that knowledge to our advantage.
In our field it is difficult not to always be comparing yourself to the person next to you. Actors especially are compared directly with a line of people before and after them that are competing for the same role. The same goes for us techies though, we may not be judged on our broadway bodies and actin skills, but our work. It is hard not to always stress that someone will be better than you or to feel better because you have done better work than another person. Personally, to distract myself from this 'competition amongst peers and workers', I strive to be the best person that I can be compared to nobody else. So far, this has proven to be the best mind set to have.
What I found to be most compelling about this article is that the author is not trying to discourage comparing oneself to others, he recognizes that this is just the way we as humans operate. But he goes on to explain that you shouldn't scrutinize yourself too aggressively with this comparison. There are varying degrees to how much an individual compares themselves to others, but ultimately everyone is doing so to some extent. What is important to keep in mind is that you are never going to have such a clear understanding of another person that you are actually able to objectively compare yourself against them. Considering this, it is easier to recognize that another person might not be surpassing you as aggressively as you think.
I love this article because it's quick to point out that this kind of competition is actually real and not a made up feeling that we all get into at some point in our lives, more specifically here at school. Of course you want your project to be better than the next guy's project. You want to stand out, you want to make a better impression, you want to look like you've got your stuff more together than the next person. And of course, this type of thinking is the exact thing that could end up hindering your success as an individual. Because art is such a subjective field, ideally much of an artist's success should come from challenging themselves to do better than the last thing they did, rather than what someone else did. In order to change this competitive mindset that I think is quite rampant not just in the School of Drama, but certainly in other departments throughout the university, the culture needs to change to one of honest support for each other rather than silently hoping that they fail so you can save yourself.
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