On Happiness And Comparisons

I noticed something tonight. Well, I've noticed it before, but a couple of separate incidents just clicked. There's this great picture floating around of a guy who built a power loader from the Aliens movie and put his baby inside for Halloween. If you haven't seen the movie, it's hard to describe, but it's basically a giant robot that a person wears as a "suit", so they can lift and move really heavy things. So the parent is dressed as the giant robot, and the baby is in the front, in the "cab" of the robot where the driver would sit. It's totally adorable and he wins at both Halloween and parenting.

Anyway, the costume isn't really the point. Kevin Smith posted it to Facebook with the comment: "Every once in awhile, you encounter someone so talented and ingenious, you feel like an utter failure in everything you've ever attempted or accomplished. I am but shit when compared to whoever made this amazing Halloween costume."

I probably would have overlooked this comment, if it hadn't been for another conversation I had with an ex-boyfriend about 4 years ago that stuck in my memory, bugging me.

I was over at his place, but we were doing separate things, as I often do with partners when I start to spend a lot of time with them (I love you guys, but my shit doesn't get done by itself!). It was nearing bedtime, and my preferred pre-bed routine is to watch TV to relax and kind of shut off my mind a little because I can't sleep with my mind racing, as it tends to do pretty much all the time. It was in the middle of a Dancing With The Stars season, so that's what I wanted to watch that night. As you all who read my journal regularly know, I'm passionate about dancing. And when I'm passionate about something, I want to share it with my partners.

I don't have to share everything with my partners - it's OK if they don't have all of the same interests as I do. But I want to at least expose them to the things I'm most passionate about. It's less about getting them to like the same things as me, and more about wanting them to see me when I'm enjoying something I'm passionate about. I think it's a good window into who I am as a person, and I want to give my partners every opportunity I can to get to know me in as many different contexts as possible - for a more complete picture of who I am.

So, as I usually did when the subject came up, I invited my then-boyfriend to watch the show with me. He resisted, and I pressed, lightly, I thought. Then he said the thing that I haven't been able to forget all these years.

He said that he didn't want to watch the show because they were so good at what they did, that watching them only made him feel bad about himself. Keep in mind that he has never, to my knowledge, even tried to learn how to dance, nor has he even expressed any interest in it. I've known lots of guys who were interested in dancing, who wished they could dance, but who believed they could not learn - who said that they tried at some point and just couldn't. But not him - dancing never seemed to be anything he was even the slightest bit interested in doing.

There is a fundamental difference between me, and Kevin Smith and my ex-boyfriend. For people like them, being in the presence of brilliance, of the extraordinary, of the exceptional makes them compare themselves to the fantastic and tally up all the ways in which they fall short.

But for people like me, being in the presence of brilliance, of the extraordinary, of the exceptional inspires me. When I compare myself to those who are better than me at something, I do not see how substandard I am by comparison, even though I am realistically aware that people are better at things than I am. When I compare, I become inspired by how I can improve. I start to wonder what I can do to move in the direction of that brilliance, of that extraordinary, of that exceptional.

If I know that it is just something beyond my reach (I will never be a competition dancer, for instance), I don't feel bad for having failed to reach a bar that I was never going to grasp in the first place. I feel inspired and hopeful just for living in the same world as that brilliance, as that extraordinary, as that exceptional. Because they add beauty and value to existence, and I benefit from that. I don't have to "measure up" to their standards to benefit from the wonders that they bring to this world. We are all better off for having those exceptional people exist. It is not necessary for me to equal their excellence, I am still better off for their existence.

And that is a core difference, I think, between people like me and people like my ex. That core difference is, I believe, at the heart of why my life will always be awesome and life for some people will always, in their view, suck, or be difficult, or be hard, or be devoid of happiness, or have only the occasional moment of fleeting pleasure in the sea of misery that is life.

That's a quote, by the way, from the ex. He did not believe that happiness existed, and that happy people were simply deluding themselves, ignoring all the pain and misery that is life. He actually said to me that he does not experience happiness, only the occasional moment of fleeting pleasure and that life is misery.

It was a very strange epiphany that day, when I had the realization that I was the optimist in the relationship. I have been nicknamed The Killer Of Dreams by another former partner because of my habit of seeing the downside in everything. Every grand scheme he came up with, I injected what I called a dose of reality to explain why his grand scheme wouldn't work. He hated that. I'm always the pessimistic one, the one who can find the flaws in the plan, the one who automatically says "no", regardless of what the request or suggestion is, and who only says "yes" much later, after I've had a chance to work out all the details and come up with a backup plan to the backup plan.

So when I discovered that I was actually an optimist, at least by comparison, the world started to look very different. If I had truly been a pessimist, I wouldn't have bought a 20-year old school bus and packed up everything I owned into it, and set off across the country with no job, no house, and only one friend waiting for me. I wouldn't have switched majors from my very respectable sociology degree with plans to start a counseling practice to the much less likely major of film, theater, & broadcasting, where I don't have a steady income, I live below the poverty line, and I frequently worry whether I can afford to eat that week. These are not the actions of a pessimist.

These are the actions of someone who believes in abundance. I believe there is always opportunity, I believe I have the skills to do what I set out to do and the ability to learn what I need to learn, and I have the confidence to be happy with my imperfect self and the life that comes with it. I will always be happy because of this outlook.

I don't mean that I will never experience sadness or pain or anger. Hell, anyone who has read more than this entry ought to know what a ridiculous idea that is! What I mean is that, if you look at the bigger picture, if you look over my life as a whole, if you ask me at almost any point during my life "is this worth it? Are you happy?" I would have to say "yes".

It's like, if you ask a married couple after 50 years, would they consider their marriage a good one and are they happy together, if that couple said "yes", it wouldn't mean that they never had a fight in those 50 years, or that they didn't sometimes annoy each other, or even that they didn't consider the possibility of leaving at least once in that whole time. But you can have those bumps in the road and still find the drive to be beautiful and worth the ride.

And, although this is definitely not a guarantee for every single person who feels this way, but I would wager that people who look at someone exceptional and see only their own failures are more likely to be people like my ex - people who see life as a sea of misery with only the occasional island of happiness. I'm not sure that one causes the other, but I do think you could do a decent guessing job that if someone does one, he probably will do the other.

I'd also wager that people who look at someone exceptional and feel inspired to be their best selves, regardless of whether or not they think they can also do that same thing, I'd wager that those people are more likely to see life as filled with opportunity and wonder, and therefore be happy in life.

And I firmly believe that people who see life as filled with opportunity and wonder are people who can do extraordinary, exceptional things. These seem to be self-perpetuating cycles. If it's an issue of brain chemistry, then I have no solution to offer. But if it's at all possible to change one's thinking, it seems to me that one way to live a life filled with wonder and opportunity and happiness is to seek out exceptional people and to be inspired by them to be the most exceptional version of oneself that one can.

I do not fear exceptional people. I am not intimidated by them. I do not compare myself to them and find myself falling short. I do not hate exceptional people. I do not envy them.

I admire them. I want more of them in my life. I am better for my exposure to them, even if that exposure is indirectly, like a celebrity whom I only know from TV and who does not know me. The world is better for having them, and since I am of the world, I am better by extension.

And that is why I will always be happy.