Feelings of Inadequacy

*NOTE: I can’t get into specifics here, but hopefully this post makes sense anyway. If not, oh well.

Riddle me this, Batman: why is it that one of the best ways to feel better about yourself is by putting other people down? It’s not really like it moves you at all–you don’t become a better person by someone else failing, just as you don’t become a worse person by someone else’s success. And yet when someone succeeds, it can be easy to feel like you’ve failed, and when someone fails, you can feel like you’ve succeeded.

I can’t really get into specifics here, but suffice it to say that over the weekend, I was feeling pretty down. Not because of anything I’d done–but because I suddenly realized certain facts of others’ performance that I hadn’t been aware of before. And so I went from feeling fairly on top of things, more or less, to feeling like a poor red-headed step child. And then today, after investigating certain things some more, I came across additional facts that I also hadn’t know before, and these facts then put my work in a much more favorable light.

And now I feel good again.

But I can’t help but wonder: nothing I did personally changed between Friday and today. And yet I went from up to down to up. Wouldn’t it have been easier for me just to feel good about what I do/did, without needing to compare myself to others?

No doubt.

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