I’ve always been a workaholic. Or maybe I’ve always been an overachiever and workaholism is simply one manifestation. Or maybe my desire to overachieve really stems from my inherent nature as a viciously competitive person. Regardless, I have always regarded myself (and largely been regarded by other people) as someone who works very hard, rarely gives up, and doesn’t like to lose. I find a lot of my self-worth from working hard and doing well. I don’t get off on hearing “good girl” as much as I do “great job.” My competitiveness stalks around, unsettled when without a challenge, and when no adversary can be found, I simply compete against myself.
To some degree, I’ve managed and mitigated my competitive nature. I’m rooting for other people too! When your desire to be better constantly comes at the expense of others, then your victory parade is a party of one. Likewise, a constant need to compete at times has made me myopic, unable to think beyond instant gratification, focusing so much on winning the battle that I lose the war.
Last night I laid in bed, my mind winding down in preparation for sleep, and I thought, “I wish I had more to show for my life.” The thought, or maybe the recognition of the thought filled me with a kind of despair. I don’t even know why that was on my mind, probably spurred by some brief, random glimpse into another person’s success. More than anything, I hated how familiar that thought was. Even though I feel immensely grateful for my life, the opportunities that are afforded me and the success that I’ve found in various pockets, it never feels like it’s enough. The thought reflexively filled me with shame: what a stupid, ungrateful thing to think. Look at your life! Some people would kill to be you! Hell, past versions of you would kill to be you! How dare you think that! You’re not even that old!
And I wanted to shun that thought, stuff it into the closet, between the couch cushions, underneath the bed. But instead, I decided to instead sit with it. Sometimes the best way to get rid of an unpleasant thought isn’t to ignore it but to let it speak. Every part yearns to be heard, and who better to listen to us than ourselves.
Okay, if you look at your life, all your hard work, all your talent, all your gifts, and you think – I have nothing to show for any of it – what is the thing you believe would validate your existence? Is it in work? Is there some dream date or gift or income threshold that would make you feel successful? Is it in your creative pursuits? Getting published in a certain literary journal? A book or movie deal? Would owning a brownstone make everything feel better? Do you want to be in love? What is this thing that you’re imagining that will make you feel like you’re enough? “Nothing to show”- show to whom? Whose approval will make you feel satisfied? What person will finally, after all this time, make you feel legitimate?
And I scoured my brain, patiently letting myself turn over every option, until I realized, perhaps for the 100th time, that there was no answer. There was no thing that, once I received it, would be enough to have me feel like I was finished. There was no person or group that that was the final authority of my legitimacy.
Nothing will ever be enough. I will never stop competing. I know this because there are things that I have now –material successes as a companion, accolades in my creative pursuits, personal milestones, approval from people I admire – that I thought, “Once I have that, it will have all been worth it.” But, like an optical illusion, the finish line always stays just out of my reach. No matter how far you go, the horizon is always the same distance away. Perhaps what filled me with despair was not that I was a failure, but that I was blind to my own success. If you’re not careful you spend so long obsessing about how far you have to go that you fail to see how far you’ve come. So I let the fear speak and once it had worn itself out, I looked out on my life and realized I was right where I needed to be.