A comparison against the average person isn’t relevant. Unless it is against my peers it wouldn’t truly show how I’m doing and what the metrics are like.
Me too! In fact, my boss flat out told me I’d never advance to middle management. (My first reaction was “Good, those people are miserable!”…)
It took a switch to an entirely different field to make any progress*. So I went from a Bio Lab to an Ad Agency to teaching at a Tech College (where an Associates degree was enough “credentials” to get me what I had no idea would be my dream job).
*Progress NOT being some “American Dream” sort of artificial “more responsibility, better title, more money, bigger house, redder car”, but measured in happiness and fulfillment.
Even if it were “fair”, everyone can’t be Number One.
I disagree. I think there are some people who you can put them in any situation and they will come out on top. Others, not so much. Most are somewhere in the middle.
It may sound trite, but often the difference between being a “winner” and a “loser” is the ability to set a goal and take action to achieve it. Particularly if you aren’t successful at something right away.
I’m a loser in a lot of ways. My career sucks, dating life sucks, not very attractive, etc.
But I’ve also done a lot of work on my mental health. I’m more mentally healthy than my siblings who both have families and careers.
It depends on what metric you use to define being a loser. Part of it is your skill set, priorities and luck.
Agreed, it’s probably a bell curve distribution of life skills. Some people have incredible life skills, some have horrible life skills. But I’m not sure if life skills are nature or nurture, or what they even are. I assume intelligence, parents socioeconomic status, ability to delay gratification, etc all play a role but who knows.
When people feel bad about themselves, they spread unhappiness. When people feel good about themselves and are not jerks, they spread happiness. When people “do all the right things” for the wrong reasons, they spread confusion and resentment.
People respond to what others are spreading.
And if being succesful is “averageness”, sorry but it took me 36 years to stop my mother’s attempt at “normalizing” me and I’m not stepping back. I don’t want to be normal. I don’t spend my nights longing to have a husband, 2 kids and a fraction of a child (which is what some people think I should have done). I don’t want to be a farmer in the third world (which is the most common job on Earth). I don’t want to be the average human being or the average woman or the average me.
I just want to be and do what makes me happy, while to the best of my ability leaving this Earth better than I found it. Anything else is other people’s expectations, and fuck that.
Your only peer is you. Stop measuring yourself against the rest of the world; you can always find a group against which you’ll be on the lower half and others against whom you’ll be on the upper half. The question is, how well are you playing the cards you and only you were dealt? I was going to say “if what you’re doing doesn’t make you happy, stop it” - well, one of the things you need to stop is all that benchmarking!
So imagine everything was the same except your peers have done worse than you. Would you feel better? If so, why? Your position would be exactly the same. Why does someone else’s success or failure have any bearing on your own happiness?
Because humans are social animals and status provides survival advantages.
So OP is unhappy because evolution? I see the point you are making but I’m not sure I buy it. A lot of low status people seem to be comfortable with it and happy.
I suggest the OP focuses on what he has rather than what others have and on what he has achieved rather than what others have achieved.
Otherwise, if he measures his success against others, he will always find someone who is doing better and he will never be happy. You see, as you climb the social ladder your peer group changes. All those CEOs? They don’t compare themselves with Jim from school who became a street cleaner, they compare themselves against other CEOs and entrepreneurs and if they allow themselves to they could easily find themselves lacking in comparison to someone.
Because everyone cant be winners and people are amazing creatures of adaptation. “Losers” can be just as happy with their lives as the “winners”.
As others have said, life’s not fair. So get over yourself and find some happiness in something, no matter how trivial. For example, when I was working the night shift, I used to go outside and watch the dawn. For another example, I’m the ultimate failure in that I’m never going to be a parent, so I’m determined to be the best uncle I can be to my nephew and niece and I find delight in helping and watching them grow. (Brag alert: my nephew just got straight As in his exams! I am, of course, immensely proud of his achievement.)
It isn’t relevant only because you’re choosing to ignore it. If you are really interested in doing a fair, non-biased assessment of your life, you need to expand your concept of “peer”. You are almost certainly doing better than the average mid-40s human being. You are probably doing just as well or better than the average mid-40s Ohioian and the average mid-40s American. If you are only looking at yourself as a member of a relatively small, elite group, then of course you’re going to feel like a loser. But I’m wondering if it is possible that you look like you’re a winner compared to the majority of people around you, including the people immediately around you. If this is in any way the case, you need to appreciate this. Doing otherwise is to choose to be low self-esteemy.
If you were to meet someone who is a One-Percenter and who is bummed out because his peers are all Point-One-Percenters, what would you tell that person to cheer them up? Would you feel that person was a loser? Or would you think that person was lucky in a lot of ways and that it’s kind of a shame that they can’t see it?
I would amend this by saying that everyone can’t be winners if they are using a normative assessment. But it is possible to be a winner when the evaluation is done in an ipsative fashion.
At any rate, it’s not that hard to find something that you’re better at than the majority of people. A person can have a “loser” salary and a “loser” romantic life, but they can have a “winner” physical activity level and a “winner” body fat percentage. Or they can be a “winner” gamer or gardener or stamp collector. If a person wants to view life as a competitive game, they’d do better collecting tokens from as many different areas of achievement as they possibly can rather than waiting for a single slot machine to pay out.
After losing the Super Bowl last year, do you think Tom Brady went back to his mansion and told Gisele “but honey, I can still beat like 99.999% of the world in football!”?
I don’t know. But I know most people don’t think Tom Brady is a loser in life just because he was a loser in one game. I am guessing Tom Brady feels similarly. YMMV.
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Some people simply like being pitied, and do everything they can to be losers. They make all the bad decisions in life, and feel like nothing is their fault.
You are treating yourself very harshly by comparing yourself to others this way. I would suspect you have let others define your goals and ambitions as well. Maybe I’m totally wrong about that but if not then it’s time for you to re-evalute who you are and what you want to be. Don’t bother with any critical analysis of what you have done before, that’s what is depressing you now. Take a fresh look at who you are and what really matters to you. If all that matters to you is how you rate yourself based on other people you will face an unhappy or self-deluding life ahead of you no matter what you do.
A lot of us have at this point in life at some time. My observation is that happiness, or as close to happiness as you can get will come from finding your best self within you. Hard to say how that works for any particular person but it’s clear you haven’t done that so far.
I wish you the best. The odds are in your favor, most people find the way to work this out to their advantage.
I was reading this thread and composing a reply and tje foind airman doors’ response which was suspiciously exactly what i was going to say almost word for word (stop reading my thoughts before I’ve had them damn it! :-D)
One of the messages that seems to run through this thread is look at what you have and where you are what you have achieved and compare that to what was, first. Don’t look at what others have and ask why not me, ask how can i get there, ask what problems they have what sacrifices they made what do they regret in getting what or where they are in life. It sounds trite, but the grass aint geeener, or if it is theres less of it than you think.
Look, my life is a pile of shit right now, but i knowit will get better, because i see what i want and i ask how and then do it, i ask whats the deawbacks and then decide if its worth it, and i accept the results of my decisions good AND bad as MY responibility,
Bad decisions. I think how they were raised plays a big part. Single parent children or children from abusive/neglectful parents tend to fare worse. Untreated depression or other mental conditions can of course contribute in a major way. Substance abuse (esp alcohol). All these (but certainly not limited), can contribute to making bad decisions in life. And bad decisions can cause major hurtles to succeeding.
I also think that certain people are just inclined to be lazy procrastinators.