It's not necessarily that I feel that I don't deserve it. I've worked in unconventional ways compared to most of my peers, and I always knew I was going to either go big or die in the gutter. Everyone always knew--I don't know why. My grades weren't that great and there was always someone more prominent.
It's like how, as a child, I spent my whole life focused on getting into college. But I had not conceptualized a me-in-college. It was as though my old self had died, I was a brand new person, and I had no idea how to cope... the old goal was gone. And similarly, I haven't prepared for success. Definitely not this kind. So when I say I'm going to distract myself, what I mean is that I need to find a new direction. Because somehow, I made it to a goal I wasn't even trying for. I wasn't prepared for any of this. Now I have to be a whole new self, who has this kind of success but still has goals. I was entirely unprepared to even consider this situation...
Anyway, thank you.
Heh, that sounds all too familiar. Thinking about it, I'm beginning to suspect the root cause may be conditioning resulting from myths about the 'child prodigy.' And that you may have the cause and effect in your first paragraph backwards.
From my experience, there is an enormous pressure put on people when they become viewed as a 'child prodigy' of some sort; and usually starting at a very young age. For me, it was somewhere around first or second grade. At which points pressures began to mount from all sides. Not just parents, whose biases about their child being the best have now been validated by early testing, but by society as a whole. Both teachers and more importantly, peers, begin to see you as the 'smart kid' who they look up to; and continue to do so regardless of whether you do well in classes. The common misconception being that, having a head start, you will simply continue to widen the gap... when actual data suggests the opposite is what usually happens. With the results being soemwhat nasty...
Having been implicitly told for your entire childhood that "you are better than all these other people/you can do more than all these other people," failure is no longer an option. Not only that, but even being average at something you care about is a failure. Even being above average is largely unacceptable, when you can look up and see others who are better and say to yourself "if they could do it, I certainly should be able to." Whether or not it is consciously believed, the feeling of "I can do better than other people," and more to the point "I
should do better than other people," has by this point been driven deep into one's subconscious. Every success is tainted with apprehension and self doubt, as you look around and see all these other people on your level, or even above it, and think to yourself how much more deserving they are; how you have failed because there are all these people who are better at what you do than you are, despite knowing that
I should do better than other people. Simply looking up once more, and wishing merely to be average in that group; regardless of the fact that the group is the top 1%; or 0.5%; or 0.25%; or 0.125%....
Or at least that's been my experience of things.
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Topic: Things that made you sad today thread. (Read 9441998 times)