You’re Not a Failure If You Don’t Strive to Be Brilliant
Recognize the illusion and refuse to swallow the bitter pill
Striving to meet an impossible ideal hurts. But how can you do anything about it if you don’t recognize your burden?
If you’re a child of this era, you might not know the hovering cloud threatening to drown you with the shame of failure didn’t exist not long ago. Now, however, it hangs heavy above you, and is felt as the pressure to succeed.
In the fifties success was about creating a happy family life. Unless, of course, you were a movie star; then, glamour and the right lighting counted as much as your pay-packet.
As a regular Joe, you knew you had succeeded if you could support your family, grow a few vegetables in your garden, and visit the seaside.
Today, people are urged to seek perfection. Social media offers an unrealistic representation of a prosperous lifestyle and it’s a bitter pill.
Swallow it, though, you may because it seems normal to you and does not register on your palate. You accept the pungent conditions you meet regularly — the burden to be brilliant and appear perfect — because they are so familiar.
“Ughh! That’s gross.”
My husband when I forget to put sugar in his tea. He pulls a face that could topple the Brooklyn Bridge.
Unlike him, though, you expect life to taste caustic, and possibly won’t think about how unacceptable it is to be pressured to fit an unrealistic model of flawlessness.
It’s hard to recognize what you put up with is not okay
Your senses have adjusted so unacceptable conditions don’t look as unpleasant as they are. You live with the illusion it’s all right for images and tales of impeccability to bombard you until you imagine you are substandard.
If the pressure to meet perfection wasn’t normalized, you would respond to it like my tea-swilling husband and find the media’s portrayal of how you should be objectionable.
In fact, you are meant to evade what causes you pain, and striving to meet impossible ideals hurts. But how can you do anything about them when you don’t recognize how unpleasant and unnecessary they are?
A new acquaintance I’ve just met at a party: “What do you do?”
Don’t you just hate that question? If you don’t burst into a personal brand story depicting excellence and notoriety, all eyes glaze over.
Few people, however, impress because the target they must reach is an illusion we’ve been force-fed.
“I walk in the countryside, try to live up to my values, and love my friends and family,” I reply.
A startling hush shatters the atmosphere. You see, I am supposed to describe myself as a success in terms of status and a flawless lifestyle, but I’m not interested.
You would also do well to spit out the burden thrust on you by outside forces. If everyone rejects it, it won’t survive.
Copyright © 2019 Bridget Webber. All rights reserved
