When I was a little kid, I wanted to be Wonder Woman when I grew up. As I got older and realized that could never realistically be on the table due to my distinct lack of superpowers or an invisible plane, I scaled way back on that dream. I was happy with my Wonder Woman Underoos (remember those?) and decided I wanted to be an astronomer instead. The teenage years brought angst and with it dreams of being a singer or writer.
Many (many!) years later, I'm a cube jockey in a temp job I've grown to despise for various reasons that I'm sure you'll be hearing plenty about in the future.
So what happened?
Other people happened. Various events in my formative years gave me a big sense of mediocrity about myself. I learned from the peers that mercilessly bullied me and the adults who wrote me off that I would be lucky to be considered just south of average and that I should settle for any job that has a steady paycheck. So I did. I stopped pushing myself. I stopped trying, because others either actively tried to stop me or simply didn't have enough faith. In short, I lived down to everyone's expectations when I actually had what it took to do better.
Sure, those things you want to do are nice dreams to have, but it's not like you can actually do any of those things. An astronomer? There's so much math, Ghost, and you're terrible at math. You'll fail. A singer? Please, you're no good at it and you're not pretty enough to make up for a lack of talent. Writing? You have to be either really skilled or really lucky to make it in that business, and you're neither, toots.
So just forget it. Get a good job in a nice office if you can and don't rock the boat. And if you hate it, too bad. Everybody hates their job. Just be employed at any place that will have you and shut up.
And so on.
I made the mistake of letting others determine for me what I was and wasn't capable of, and as a result I've trudged through the pink collar ghetto for nearly 20 years.
To be fair to these folks, I don't hate them for my predicament. Okay, the kids who bullied me were rotten little monsters, but the adults just didn't want to see me get hurt. If I never risked anything, I couldn't experience the pain of failure, right?
I let others systematically convince me that I just wasn't meant to be great or even merely good, and that my lot in life was to go along to get along and base my sense of value on whatever crumbs someone else chose to throw me.
That has to stop. When I was in the thick of my depression, I thought that the Eleanor Roosevelt quote "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent" was an empty platitude along the lines of "everything happens for a reason" or "smile, it gets better!" But now that the fog has cleared somewhat, I see that she was absolutely right. If I'm going to get anywhere in life, I have to stop letting others, whether they're people standing in front of me or the harsh echoes of past voices, decide for me what I'm worth.
Just typing that last paragraph has made me feel a little freer and more in control. We can all make course corrections in our own lives based on our own needs instead of others' expectations and opinions.
I'm not saying we have complete control. There are things that are simply out of our hands. For example, you can nail that job interview and have the hiring manager practically eating out of your hand, but the next person he interviews might completely blow his mind. Or a director or vice president could walk in the room after you've left and announce to the hiring manager that her just-graduated-from-college-five-minutes-ago-with-a-degree-in-a-totally-different-field kid needs a job and should have that one instead of working an entry-level job for a while like everyone else has to do. But that's okay, because for every one thing that is not in our control, there are ten that are.
So shake off all the little hurts that have piled up over the years and decide for yourself what you can and can't achieve. Yes, it's easier said than done and there's a crap-ton of work involved (more on this later), but we're all capable of doing it even if we don't know it yet. Tell all those naysayers that they are no longer allowed to live rent free in your head. Sure, they'll complain and rage about it, but who gives a crap what they think?
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