You don't have to be the best (Part I)

About a week ago, while meandering aimlessly through posts on Facebook, I stumbled across a Kurt Vonnegut quote that a friend had posted, and it really hit a chord with me. (I often find myself mildly exasperated by "inspirational" quotes on the internet, and positively filled with rage at some of the utter tripe that's ascribed to Winnie-the-Pooh but which was absolutely not crafted by A A Milne. I'm assuming they're Disney quotes, or just random bollocks that someone on the internet made up, but I find them irksome.)

Anyway, back to Vonnegut. I was so taken with this particular piece that I even spent some time hunting around for references to it, to try and be as certain as possible that it wasn't a Winnie-the-Pooh-ism. And I was pretty satisfied that it was the real thing.  And the thing is, I have been going back to it several times a day, reading and re-reading it. Marvelling at what a radically different world view it presents to me, and wishing, perhaps, that I had had this particular epiphany several decades ago.

“When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes. And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.” 

 

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

 

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.”

 - Kurt Vonnegut

Pretty* obvious isn't it? It's great to do things just for fun, because you like them, because they make you smile, just because. You don't have to be the best, you don't have to "win", you just have to do it and you'll be a richer, more rounded, more interesting person. But that's not really me. While I certainly can't lay claim to the level of talent that Mr Vonnegut has, I can definitely relate to the "achievement-oriented environment". I need to be good at everything I do, I need to excel, I need to prove myself. And it's absolutely exhausting. Not to mention the fact that there are lots of things I don't do, because I'm a bit rubbish at them. Or maybe just average. I avoid huge swathes of life's opportunities for fear of failing, or of not being the best at it. 

In a moment of synchronicity, today I found my original diagnosis of anxiety and depression and the accompanying recommendations made by the psychologist to my GP. Illuminating excerpts include:

"PhysicsBear worries that she is not good enough, despite the evidence going against this, and engages in anxious predictions... PhysicsBear has unrelenting standards which are exacerbating her beliefs... she fears that she will get something wrong and as a result of this she oscillates between over-preparing and avoiding..."

And one of the therapy goals that was identified in 2013 was:

"Not to be as concerned that she is failing if she is not perfect."

So really, seven years later, I shouldn't find Kurt Vonnegut's words such a revelation. But here I am anyway, trying to accept that just doing stuff for fun is OK. I don't have to be perfect. I don't have to be better than other people. Me is enough. Doing is enough. 

So if you hear an off-key warble, aimlessly meandering from note to note, not quite holding a tune, it's just me singing. Because I'm crap at it, but it makes me happy. And if it doesn't actually cause anyone physical pain (which may be debatable) then perhaps I should give myself permission just to do one thing really badly, if it makes me happy.

* At this point in my writing, IdiotCat walked across the keyboard and wrote "hjukkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk,55555". Tempting though it was to leave his words for posterity, I felt it detracted from the readability.