Some people spend a lifetime clocking their non-accomplishments and dreaming of a big break. Here’s how to escape aspirational limbo, even if the only change you make is to your mind-set.
By Abby Ellin, published on July 01, 2010 - last reviewed on September 03, 2010
I have never written a best-selling book.
I have never won a Pulitzer.
I have never reported for 60 Minutes, won a gold medal in gymnastics, or thanked my parents and God as Barbara Streisand handed me my Oscar for Best Actress/Writer/Director.
I do not have a Ph.D. or J.D. Nor, for that matter, did I spend my undergraduate years frolicking amid the ivied walls of Harvard or Yale.
I have only one home, a one-bedroom in New York City. No Tuscan villa. No French chateau. No yurt in Sonoma.
In sum, I am not living the life I expected—the life of, say, Diane Sawyer, Julia Roberts, or better yet, Barack Obama. And this bothers me.
A lot.
It’s not that I think I’m a total loser. I can hold my own at cocktail parties. I can pitch a tent. I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro. I have an MFA in creative writing and I authored a book, Teenage Waistland, which was optioned by SONY Pictures. (Not that it was ever made into a movie.) I even saved someone’s life once–a woman had pilfered cantaloupe slices from the bulk food section of a supermarket, began choking on them, and turned to me for assistance. I called out, “Heimlich in Aisle 1! We need someone to do the Heimlich in Aisle 1!”
She lived.
On good days, my psychic resume seems fine. Other times, I’m gripped with the gnawing sensation that I haven’t tapped my full potential, that I’m not operating on all six cylinders, that I’m simply not…enough. On those days I identify with the late Farrah Fawcett, who longed to move past Charlie’s Angels status into serious acting. People laughed—until she did The Burning Bed, which got her nominated for an Emmy award and a Golden Globe.
I’ve got more in me, too, I think.
Call it the Contender Syndrome–while this phenomenon is not a clinical diagnosis, the feeling is quite common today, especially with the proliferation of social networking and the public blaring of the fabulousness of other people’s lives.
“Whether it’s a 16-year-old student or 45-year-old CFO, I hear them say, ‘I’m not as successful as I should be,’ and I’m seeing it more and more,” says Jim Taylor, a psychologist in San Francisco. “It used to be that your immediate comparison group was your neighborhood or friends. Now you’re exposed to everybody who has so much. We base our happiness on our most immediate comparison group. These days, it’s the world.”
Looking Up Gets You Down
We all gauge our own success against that of others, at least in part, and we always compare up. Universal though it is, the negative comparison habit may be amplified by America’s striving spirit: Here, everyone can, and therefore should, make it to the top–or so we think. Those of us who’ve had more opportunities may wind up feeling that much worse.
Take Cheryl Aviva Amitay, a graduate of Brown University and the University of Maryland law school. Amitay has a happy marriage, a great daughter, two older “bonus” stepsons, and a career as a lawyer near her home in Bowie, MD. Still, she’s plagued with feeling subpar compared to some of her peers.
“I read through Brown Alumni Magazine and feel a bit ill as I see how rich, famous, and influential my classmates have become,” says Amitay. “It seems like everyone and their mothers are doing interesting, meaningful, exciting things. I am just back at work, in a non-permanent, junior contract legal position, after having been laid off from a job I didn’t like but that at least had a great title. I feel like the world’s greatest underachiever who peaked senior year in high school, when I got into Brown early admission, was the school president and class clown, played drums in a band, did school plays, and was considered ‘cool’ and ‘different.’”
Amitay acknowledges that her life probably looks good to others, but she’s bothered by thinking she should have been able to leverage her “wits, brass, and assertiveness” into something bigger or more extraordinary.
I know the feeling. Take Tina Fey. I do not know Tina Fey, but we’re around the same age, have similar coloring and are known for being funny—at least she is. Sometimes it really bums me out, the feeling that I Am Not Tina Fey and Never Will Be. Other times, I think about her accomplishments and kick into high gear, logging extra hours at my computer. Why do I, and others, vacillate between feeling inspired and wracked with despair?
Because excellence in others expands our sense of possibility, giving us a positive surge of energy–unless we’re too wrapped up in a knot of negative self-comparison to gain that vicarious boost, says Shane Lopez, a psychologist and senior scientist at the Gallup organization. The key is to remain “self-referential,” to allow ourselves to be moved by others while staying focused on our own path. “Self-referential people see themselves as the marker,” says Lopez. “They care about their own performance, not how they measure up compared to that guy over there. They don’t attach themselves to super successful people. They can get the boost, but they don’t see that person as a reference point or a competitor because the only competitor is the self.”
Self-referential people are more hopeful than those of us who see everyone else’s path as possibly better than our own, says Lopez. They have their own personal goals, and constantly turn their focus to those. “If you’re flipping channels– ‘I coulda been a great author.’ Click. ‘I coulda been a great chef.’ Click– you’re never going to be any of those. You have to figure out what matters to you and bring your attention and focus back to that, not to what someone else is doing.”
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