I look over the past year, and I have to admit (and it's a bitter admission) that I have accomplished nothing. … The biggest thing I can think of is that I am facing the month of November without feeling suicidally depressed….
As you've already read in this thread, you and I aren't the only ones to feel this way. I think part of our trick is defining "accomplishment" in such a way that we can avoid having any; or, to put it in more gentle terms, we undervalue what we do. I reckon part of the reason I do this is a fairly normal drive for self-improvement which has run amok: if I believe my laurels are weeds and stomp all over 'em, I won't be a bit tempted to rest on them.
I also have a tendency to admire only skills and talents I do not myself possess; to be most impressed by things I can't, don't, or don't believe I can do, or by things done at a level I don't believe I'll ever achieve. "That's easy," I'll think. "Even I can do that. What I really admire—what I'd really like to be able to do—is what she does … what he does … what they do. I could never learn to do that."
I've been working to overcome this tendency, because I don't believe it serves me well, but it's been a long and difficult struggle.
So. Erm. Ah…
It's all well and good to want to accomplish more and to think about what that "more" might be and to consider steps toward achieving it, but I believe this is much easier to do if you are willing to acknowledge the very real things you have accomplished. Heck, you'd probably give somebody else some credit if they'd accomplished "X"—to deny yourself the same credit is just being mean to yourself. <He says … really believing it only applies to people other than himself.>
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"It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."
Date: 2006-11-22 07:45 am (UTC)I look over the past year, and I have to admit (and it's a bitter admission) that I have accomplished nothing. … The biggest thing I can think of is that I am facing the month of November without feeling suicidally depressed….
As you've already read in this thread, you and I aren't the only ones to feel this way. I think part of our trick is defining "accomplishment" in such a way that we can avoid having any; or, to put it in more gentle terms, we undervalue what we do. I reckon part of the reason I do this is a fairly normal drive for self-improvement which has run amok: if I believe my laurels are weeds and stomp all over 'em, I won't be a bit tempted to rest on them.
I also have a tendency to admire only skills and talents I do not myself possess; to be most impressed by things I can't, don't, or don't believe I can do, or by things done at a level I don't believe I'll ever achieve. "That's easy," I'll think. "Even I can do that. What I really admire—what I'd really like to be able to do—is what she does … what he does … what they do. I could never learn to do that."
I've been working to overcome this tendency, because I don't believe it serves me well, but it's been a long and difficult struggle.
So. Erm. Ah…
It's all well and good to want to accomplish more and to think about what that "more" might be and to consider steps toward achieving it, but I believe this is much easier to do if you are willing to acknowledge the very real things you have accomplished. Heck, you'd probably give somebody else some credit if they'd accomplished "X"—to deny yourself the same credit is just being mean to yourself. <He says … really believing it only applies to people other than himself.>
Um. But you already know all that….