It's hard to enjoy things when you compare yourself with others
Yesterday I was catching up with some of the blogs I follow and while reading I had this subtle but oppressive feeling of disillusionment, a weight on top of mind. I was thinking to myself "wow these people are really great, they not only write very well with an extensive vocabulary and well-formed sentences, but also write engaging posts that I'm eager to continue reading". That is good for them I guess. But for me, I feel like I'm not good enough, I had the feeling yesterday that I should just drop it and stop kidding myself. I'm not even a native English speaker and — while I feel my vocabulary is pretty good — I can't hope to be able to express all the detailed gradations of meaning that you can only pick up from your native environment.
I'm still writing here though. I now — after sleeping on it and a healthy dose of coffee — identify these feelings as my old friend the impostor syndrome. It could be that I'm not as good as them. It can be that I won't ever be able to write as well as others. It could be that my content is not as engaging or free flowing as what is usually considered good. But even if all these are true, it is undeniable to me that writing is something I thoroughly enjoy doing. So if that is true, what importance do the other things even have? Who cares if I won't win prizes for painting these pictures if I enjoy my time doing them? I'm lucky enough that I don't need to win anything. If seen like this — with the bad parts cut off — then writing becomes an endeavor of pure enrichment: experience a pleasant time, improve at something I enjoy, get to know myself better.
This problem of not wanting to do something because of not feeling I'm good enough is very pervasive in my life. I always have this feeling that everything is a competition that needs to be won and if I don't play to win then I shouldn't play at all. This is weird, because I don't consider myself to be a very competitive person, I actually actively avoid entering a competitive mindset whenever I can avoid it. Maybe it's a byproduct of my education — read cultural influences — that makes me subconsciously behave as if everything has a ranking, a set of prizes to be competed for, that merit is the only thing of value there is. You end up focusing more on collecting accomplishments than doing the thing itself.
The worst part of this is that I don't believe I need to be the best, but I do feel I should do my best. This is a completely toxic attitude though, because it makes you — subtly, almost imperceptibly — take on a competitive mindset. You become unable to do things just for fun unless it's a solitary, isolated thing. Something that you won't show to anyone else. And I don't think this isolation good. I want to be able to wholeheartedly share things with others, using the complete meaning of the word.
I try not to fall into this trap of feeling I need to compete. I really do. But, right now, I think this is a way in which my mind works. Trying to dismantle it — as I've been doing lately with writing — is hard and requires seeing what metrics am I judging myself with and seeing (rather than questioning) how coarse they are, how completely they miss the point. I can only hope that these efforts have ramifications in other areas of my life. I can only hope to slowly become more open to accept myself and stop comparing with others. I can only hope I stop caring about the unimportant things.
But it's all a process I guess. A path that should be walked, one step at the time.
~ Take care 🌱