Do you define success by using other people as your benchmark?

Or perhaps more importantly do you define your failure rate based on how well you think other people are doing compared to you? You see in that kind of thought process, someone has to be a "winner" which means someone else has to be a "loser"!
For example - you knew there was going to be a for example....
You spend 4 years gaining your qualifications...you are very proud of the fact that you achieved 88%. You are a "success". What happens then if you find out your excellent pass mark of 88% is actually the lowest of the class....do you still define your 88% as a success? I would probably say that you would feel embarrased that your score was so low, and you would feel like you had "failed". You would start to negate the 4 years of hard study as a complete waste of time - after all - compared to everyone else you were a "failure".

And your body, your words of congratulations to your fellow classmates may be half-hearted at best, or sarcastic - as you try and belittle their "success". They had better luck, or you weren't feeling your best on the day....

Do you want to know something interesting? An associate of mine once told me that to get a doctorate, you had to narrow your focus so much that you were only "clever" in one area of your life....think about it. You can be a doctor of ants, you can also be a doctor of ant nest creation and how it relates to the macrocosm of society....ok i made the last one up. But one gentleman I saw on a TV documetnary does have a doctorate in mud brick building and how to make them safer during earthquakes....so what happens, when someone else takes his work and builds a safer, stronger mud brick house - does that negate the original work? Of course not. But he may consider that he is a failure, because he didn't think of ALL the alternatives....

Lets face it - if we consider that the definition of success is how well we beat other people, then we are complete failures. We will also spend a lot of wasted time and energy - berating ourselves for not doing more or better than our "opponents" or we will negate the work of the others - trying to bring them down to our level.....

It's interesting, the other people may not consider the fact that they are competing against you, all they know is the whole class passed with flying colours. Whilst you may think they are being a smug smart ass, after all anyone would feel gracious to others when they win can't they....have you seen the movie cars yet? You should.

We need to redefine this definition of success....but first you need to stop comparing yourself to others, and then you can ask the questions that needs to be asked...

Did you do all that you could all of the time?

Can you learn from your "mistakes" (ie., the actions that you took to reach the outcome that you got) to get a better outcome next time?
Did you win at the expense of others, or could you have both/all done better if you had cooperated?

With many thoughts for a successful day

(MMW1, MMM1)

Comments

[Not so sleepy]

It would be good if we could 'just be' self-validated. But the western ethos of compete-or-die means that we either join in, opt-out or live in delusion. Delusion is a big feature of the American educational system, where you can get a MacDegree of dubious quality. If a student really believes he/she is well-qualified (when objectively that's not the case) - how does this serve the progress of Man? That's surely the purpose of benchmarks.

Of the above options, opting out is the procrastinator's obvious choice. As in "I'll get the degree one day", "If only I'd had a better education, then I'd be able to ...(insert avoided activity)"

not-so-SH

[Elle]

I feel that it depends on who or what you are benchnarking yourself against. And whether you are using those benchmarks as a push to get you inspired to be more, do more, see more than you are currently achieveing. Or whether you use those benchmarks as an excuse not to start because you can't possibly do better than so and so.