It always felt awkward when people tell me I have high capacities, or any sort of similar compliment, because it never feels like I'm "good enough" or that I'm really able to materialize those pretended capacities into my real life. It leads to an awful feeling of "missing one's true calling".
In the end, I did not acquire a significant amount of merit or status related to those capacities I heard people tell me.
Rating oneself, evaluating oneself, comparing oneself to others is NEVER healthy. The universe doesn't care, society doesn't care, your relatives don't really care, it will not make you happier, and generally it won't make the world a better place.
It's important to have humility, and avoid the reflexes of constantly having the thought of "what rank am I, do I reach my objectives, am I doing my part". It matters to do self introspection but it's not healthy to be afraid of natural selection because it leads to a social darwinist mindset, "eat or be eaten", which will always generate anxiety and fear. Civilized brains are able to focus on cooperation, not domination.
Humans exited the food chain, so there's no need to act like animals in the wild.
> Rating oneself, evaluating oneself, comparing oneself to others is NEVER healthy. The universe doesn't care, society doesn't care, your relatives don't really care, it will not make you happier, and generally it won't make the world a better place.
An old one I had heard (and am probably mis-remembering):
"Life is not a True/False exam, it's not multiple choice, or short answer, or even an essay. Heck, in the end, it's only self-graded, and only if you feel like the bother."
You do end up caring about the skill of people that affect your life. And they care about how you affect theirs. And if you're not a narcissist, you'll care when you affect someone's life negatively.
In this way, we rate each other about how they affect our lives. This is important because the feedback generated is used to improve things. However, it should not be a terminal rating and re-evaluation should always be possible unless you commit very serious crimes.
You can try to shut your eyes but it will not go away. Regarding various aspects and abilities you occupy different places in hierarchies.
This doesn't have to be a crushing discovery. There's plenty you can do to improve and there also luck involved. It makes sense to go out there and shuffle your cards, generate opportunities improve compared to your past self etc.
But it's undeniable that there are differences in attractiveness and personality that won't go away. You can try to live in some Disney world where everyone can become a top hero but it's not possible. Not every employee can become a manager and the a CEO. Not every man can date the women that they personally find the most attractive (taken as a "whole package", not just in physical attractiveness). Not everyone can get the best paying jobs.
It's better to come to terms with this so it's not a scary thing any more.
Motivational books won't tell you this, and nobody wants to be a mood killer to say it. Especially in outwardly positive cultures like America.
You need to know where you are compared to your peers, and assess if you made progress. Sure tracking your progress compared to your past self is also crucial, perhaps more important day to day, but unless you understand where you are among your peers, you will misunderstand things and have wrong expectations.
We are humans but also animals and are subconsciously aware of who is "above and below" us. We interact with them differently, our posture changes, our tone of voice changes, our hormones change depending on how we compare to our surrounding people.
This assessment can also be off in various ways for various reasons like conscious or unconscious manipulation/persuation from others, depression etc.
In the end, I did not acquire a significant amount of merit or status related to those capacities I heard people tell me.
Rating oneself, evaluating oneself, comparing oneself to others is NEVER healthy. The universe doesn't care, society doesn't care, your relatives don't really care, it will not make you happier, and generally it won't make the world a better place.
It's important to have humility, and avoid the reflexes of constantly having the thought of "what rank am I, do I reach my objectives, am I doing my part". It matters to do self introspection but it's not healthy to be afraid of natural selection because it leads to a social darwinist mindset, "eat or be eaten", which will always generate anxiety and fear. Civilized brains are able to focus on cooperation, not domination.
Humans exited the food chain, so there's no need to act like animals in the wild.