"All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done, the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints."
-from "SantaLand Diaries" in Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
On Saturday, several of my friends were running in a 5K race, and I set out to cheer them on. Armed with pieces of computer paper lamely decorated with Sharpie markers, I went out and stood along the course, hoping to pick my six friends out of the 30,000 runners.
I stood near the start at first, then after all of the runners had gone by me, I moved to a spot about a third of a mile from the end of the course. At this point, the runners had gone about 2.8 miles, but because there was also a 15K race that was coming up behind them, the sign at that spot said 9 miles.
As I walked up, I heard one runner say, “9 miles? Wow, we have gone farther than I thought!” His out-of-breath friends chuckled at the lame joke, and they kept running. Less than a minute later, someone else said, “Wow! Miles 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 just flew by!” Then, someone else: “9 miles! We are such rock stars!”
For the whole 30 minutes or so that I stood there, it was a constant chorus of the same thing. I’d say at least one in every 20 runners saw the 9-mile marker, knew it was absurd, and felt the need to make some clever remark.
I have to admit that I smiled at the first couple of cracks. It’s mildly amusing. But after about 5 minutes, it got really old. I understand that as each person said something, it was the first time they had heard it, not the fiftieth. To each person, it was a new joke, and he or she happened to be the first person within earshot to come up with it. And since they weren’t standing there like I was, all of them got to just keep running, and therefore continue believing that their jokes were original.
It’s generally an innocent and harmless thing, thinking you are saying something new and clever. The phenomenon’s worst effect is annoyance. For example, while I only had to put up with the 9-mile jokes for half an hour, I have put up with people asking, “So, are you rich?” after seeing my surname for the entire 27 years I have been on this earth. Every time, I force a smile and give my stock answer: “In spirit only.” But every time, I want pull out a tally and say, “I am not laughing because you are the 1,443rd person to say that to me. That doesn’t count the people who have said it more than once.”
I try not to hold this kind of thing against people. I know my level of annoyance with unoriginality borders on irrational. But I like to think the one positive effect of my surliness is that I don’t see myself as all that clever, funny, or unique. I’m just a very good conversationalist. I hate small talk. It makes me feel fake. So, I usually don’t force people to listen to my lame jokes and expect them to act like they’ve never heard them before. (Or at least, I don’t think I do. Leave a comment if you disagree. Seriously. I don’t want to be that person.)
But as I was thinking about this issue, I realized that I can’t let myself completely off the hook. I may not think I am unique in positive ways. I don’t see myself as funnier than average, or more organized, or prettier. I have never even really thought of myself as smarter than average. Even though I always knew that I was at the top of my classes, I was never really thought about how I compared to others. I cared that I did well, but if everyone else did equally well, that was ok by me. I just wanted to be good -- not better.
However, I do often see myself as unique in negative ways, and typically, that belief is completely false. And the result is never low self-esteem. The result is always a completely lame and unjustified pity party.
The classic example of this is my reaction to my injuries during marathon training. I struggled with shin splints while I was training for the half marathon last year, but I was able to push through that. This year, I felt like there was no way I could struggle like that a second time. But, I did. In the first half of the training season, my shin splints got so bad that I had to drop out of one of my bigger races.
After that, I got my gait analyzed, and for quite a while, my shin splints went away. I was so relieved, and felt like I had solved the problem. But eventually, despite the fact that my running form was greatly improved, they came back. Hundreds of miles into a marathon training program, despite the fact that I went through some grueling and embarrassing training sessions with a coach, my shin splints came back anyway.
I started to get angry. It just did not feel fair. Why I was I the one struggling so much with this? I was working really hard; I was completely dedicated to my training. Other people were wimping out and skipping runs and losing motivation. I would happily run all my miles if I could. Other people may be struggling with minor injuries, but I was the only one to be chronically injured despite my dedication. It just was not fair.
With the help of a friend, I was able to get past my shin splints and get through my big long runs. I felt vindicated. But then, two weeks before the marathon, I developed a brand new knee injury during a taper run. Then I was mad again. Sure, there may be a lot of people who get injured during training, but I was the only one to get injured during taper. I was the only one having to face the choice of trying the race with the risk of serious injury or sitting it out with the risk of serious regret. Only me; just me; I have it worse than anyone else.
I seriously thought like that. And clearly, none of that is true. I’m sure there were hundreds of runners that fought injuries during taper, and hundreds more that are still fighting with shin splints. I believed I was singled out by the powers of the universe to suffer. And it’s not the first time.
So, I have a new project. I call it “Project: Get Over It.” I’m going to work on not seeing myself as such a victim all the time. I’m going try to stop being so jealous of all the people that don’t have the same problem as me, and remind myself that there are people who do have the same problem as me.
It’s not going to be easy. But with a little self awareness, I think I can do it. It’ll take some positive vibes, but I think I can manage those. After all, I am rich… in spirit only.
1 comment:
I think there's just something about the nature of the human mind that makes us see our problems as worse than everybody else's. There's probably some evolutionary significance to this. Like in the caveman days, if you had a bear that was stealing your food every night, it would not do you any good to be like, "Dude, I'm so lucky that a bear only steals my food, because a bear stole that other caveman's child." Because then you would be so busy feeling grateful for your minimal problems that you wouldn't do anything to address the bear issue, and the next time he would eat your whole family, and then your entire grateful lineage would be wiped out. Meanwhile, the neurotic, self-pitying caveman thought to address his own minimal problems, and thus survived to produce a lineage that includes all of us whiners today. Now of course, in modern times, there aren't too many examples of times when it's in our own best interest to wallow in our own petty problems. So, like you, I struggle to stop feeling like a victim who has the worst life ever. But it's a daily struggle, and certainly not one I've conquered by any means.
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