Toward the end of a class today I mentioned that my daughter was in hospital and they wondered why I was not at the hospital as well. Being self-employed is a kind of rain or shine, sickness or in health kind of deal and as it is only me, it is only me. My business is such that unless I am in front of clients, I do not get paid and right now, that is not much of an option.
It is this cycle I am trying to break, one where a few events piled atop one another can cause a great amount of pressure, like rocks on the chest weigh one down. I dislike this feeling but at the same time, it forces me to be productive in uncomfortable ways. There is value in discomfort although right now, I would like a little respite. Wanting something doesn't make it so.
During the class I was explaining a few cultural type of phenomena in Finland with one being the glorification and celebration of mediocrity. There is nothing wrong with being average but, I think that wasting resources is part of a poor process and choosing to be average is incredibly wasteful and quite selfish.
Yes, this is personal choice and forcing people to perform like trained monkeys is not a healthy process but, what is holding so many (myself included) back from striving to be their best, why do we use so much energy to be like everyone else? This is the culture in Finland although, I do think it is slowly shifting.
People fear (again myself included) standing out in the crowd, standing apart from the group as it opens one up to judgement, positive and negative. And, the more public and divergent the person, the more likely negative judgement will come. It is a standard distribution thing where people accept average easily and reject more and more strongly the further away something gets from themselves.
It is easy to judge something on the differences and say it is 'not right', than recognize the similarities and acknowledge that it is 'not right, just like me'. It is easy to cherry-pick the dividing differences and focus attention there than accept the generally much larger pool of same that unite people.
Freud coined a term, the Narcissism of Small Differences observing that groups with adjoining territories and cultural similarity are much more likely to partake in feuds and mutual ridicule. It is much like a personality clash between parent and child when they are 'too similar', causing friction. that can lead ti all kinds of difficult situations and complicated relationships.
It is an interesting paradox of sorts because we like to associate ourselves with people and groups similar to ourselves but, when we are within those same groups, the narcissism of small differences creates conflicts as people are essentially forced to compete for the same patch of ground with similar skillsets and outlooks. This competition is what leads to a great deal of animosity between group members who on paper should be good friends due to similarity.
This is because they are competing on a differentiation of skill but, that differentiation might be a very narrow band and relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of things. but, that same differentiation could be the difference between being a mid level salary semi-pro or extremely highly paid sporting star. There is massive incentive to be the best even if that best is not much better than a step or two down the ladder.
In my opinion, this is why it is quite ridiculous to not push for being our best in whatever we choose but instead compete on being average on what the group has decided is acceptable. It means that the majority of us are not only not doing what we want or enjoy, we have very, very little chance of being successful enough at it since the pool of people competing is immense and some of them actually love what they do and are very good at it.
Wouldn't it be a better process for the individual that instead of aiming for average in something many are already doing it would be better to drive for excellence in something that is actually enjoyed and potentially, valuable? This will of course require a whole range of skill development that might not be as enjoyable as the overall result but, that is where the love and passion comes in.
I don't know about other people but for me, I don't want a presentation to be mediocre, I don' want to buy a product from a sales person who doesn't care about what they are selling and, I am not inspired by people who don't believe in themselves, who don't believe that they have any agency over their own lives. Average isn't inspiring just like a cloudy day isn't going to take the breath like a magnificent sunset.
Finding what we enjoy is definitely not an easy process as for the most part, the incentives are not there in the lower reaches. But, finding something that one can talk about with passion, care for and want to hustle day in and day out trying to be better at, isn't that incentive enough?
Similar is what we have, different is where real value lays.
Taraz
[ a Steem original ]
