Yesterday I had one of those days. I sat down to write this blog and had a carefully curated to-do-list of ‘grown up and responsible person’ things to accompany it. This list had time slots for optimising my productivity, bullet points and carefully written out notes to remind me of my ‘intention’ for the day.
Then my laptop (which is over ten years old) and has seen me through two degrees and a Masters decided to have a monumental freak out. It seemingly had a mind of its own. Tabs opened at random, the screen blackened out and flickered back to life like it was trying its best to be faithful and trustworthy – but the strain just made it all the more unreliable. Most bizarrely (and frustratingly) the numbers on my keypad decided that it would only show their symbolic counterparts. I spent over two hours down YouTube rabbit holes trying to fix my ailing robot who I am actually very sentimental about. I did it, but it involved a lot of screaming at inanimate objects. It involved muttering out loud to an American IT Expert from 2010: ‘Thanks Gary…that Ctrl-Alt-shift trick with the F8 button is genius.’
Nonetheless, my list was ruined, the schedule completely in tatters. The day felt like a right off; and I felt shameful, irritated tears prick my eyes.
‘Successful People’ don’t waste the afternoon curled up in a ball of computer induced rage. ‘Successful People‘ don’t have laptops that were designed and manufactured pre-2010. ‘Successful People’ are consistent and seamless in their efforts to produce and be productive. ‘Successful People’ are effortless and always able to level up to that next challenge AND look good in lemon sorbet yellow (who in real life looks good in lemon sorbet yellow?! and yet...they do.)
Anyway, you get the idea – I was having one of those days. You know self-doubt is rife when sorbet yellow is in the forefront of your mind…
Later whilst I was washing up the dishes (this is where most of my thinking takes place) I wondered: ‘Why did this bother me so much? What about this situation made me react with such anger and frustration?
We all carry around sets of beliefs about ourselves; we all carry stories that are playing out on a cinema screen for an audience of one. One of my stories is about where I place my worth. One of my stories is about what success looks like. It’s important to note that I recognise that both of these stories need a re-write. They need modernising, They need time and tenderness, encouragement and new voices to enter into the narrative to help change the tempo.
My internal conditioning means I will always want to be seen as ‘successful’ by others. As part of a society that heavily critiques and shames people (especially women) who don’t fill a role in the way that is expected means my unconscious self is almost entirely set up to help me to avoid this scrutiny altogether. She gets very upset when her attempts at being ‘successful’ or ‘productive’ are called into question. Somewhere along the line the messaging I’ve picked up is that I won’t be successful. Perhaps it was when I was little and I understood poetry better than algebra and one was seen as ‘superior’ to the other. Perhaps it was the unexpected eye-roll when I decided to study English Literature, then the anticipated second eye-roll when I trained as a counsellor. Not. Much. Money. In. That.
But the question I really want to ask in this blog post is do we need anymore ‘Successful People’? I’m referring to the ‘Successful People’ who look good in sorbet yellow…who actually don’t exist.
This led me with my soap-drenched hands to wonder what kind of people we do need? If the ‘Successful People’ I’m comparing myself to (that aren’t real) are more fiction then the stories that play on loop in my brain, then what does a real, concrete success look like? Maybe success is not throwing my aged computer against a wall. Maybe success is waking up today and sitting down at this desk and writing these thoughts down. Maybe success looks like tenderness, maybe success is allowing poetry to be just as important as algebra. Maybe success is litter picking.
Then this afternoon the counselling gods shined down on me, they gave me this quote and I felt comforted:
‘The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.’
David Orr ‘Ecological Literacy: Educating our Children for a Sustainable World’
What is success? Seriously, what is it? Money, status, how other people view you? This quote made me think of it in a different way. What if I defined my success by what this world actually needs, what if I defined it by what I’m actually capable of giving to it?
I’m never going to be an economist (pants at maths), or a doctor (blood is icky), nor a lawyer (devil’s advocate is stressful). And that’s ok. I’m a professional listener who really loves poetry. We need more of us.
I reckon that if you’re reading this then perhaps you have felt this way too (even if you are a lawyer, or a doctor or a economist). I suppose what I’m trying to say is that you are exactly what our world needs; your kindness is revolutionary. Your love is society changing, your art is important. Perhaps your great great grand children will be more impressed by your compassion then your paycheck.
Just a thought for when your computer next blows up and it makes you feel as useful as a potato.