We all have that someone we look up to — someone who inspires us, makes push further, think more and be a better human. Inspiration is part of what makes us human, but it’s also not without its weakness.
Initially, I was going to write this post with a specific audience in mind. Teens. Then I got to thinking: we all do this.
We do this in our social lives
I wish I had such a busy social schedule — all I ever seem to do is stay home and watch Netflix.
We do it in our relationships
Those guys have it all figured out — they have such a loving relationship, they never fight and they’re so cute!
We do it at work, we do it with friends — the list goes on.
Often we see someone who is the very ideal of what we aspire to in life, work, relationships, sport, maybe even sex and we can’t help but want to be them. In our eyes, they’re perfect. They can do no wrong and they’re the End Goal of your personal evolution as far as you’re concerned.
That’s super not healthy. Every self-help advice book will tell you “Just be yourself!” with a pithy smile and it just Sounds. So. Trite. And it is trite, but it’s also true.
The thing about trying to be someone else just because you think that they’re just the perfect human is that it generates a lot of cognitive load. It’s why even the best spies don’t construct an entirely new persona for themselves — they will integrate aspects of one into their own. In a stressful situation, you don’t want to be trying to remember to stay in character and react appropriately.
So this is my suggestion:
Don’t try to be someone else. Take the bits you find appealing and find a way to integrate them into yourself.
If your idol is a social butterfly, firstly consider whether you actually want that level of social interaction — if you’re exhausted by conversation with 8 people at the same time, you will break down.
If you find that you do want to pursue expanding your social activity, invite a friend or two over for pizza and movies. Take up programming and go to a meetup. Find a weekly running group — whatever it is, you will start to integrate Social Things into your life.
The Perfect Couple? You may be surprised to find that many couples are putting on a front so that other people comment on just how gosh-darn perfect their relationship is, thereby validating it.
They are the couples who you always see on Facebook and Instagram, posting selfie after selfie with their partner, full of #blessed #bestboyfriend #bestgirlfriend #soinlove. Many folks see that and think that’s what they want: the ‘perfect’ Instagram Relationship. It just looks so #divine!
However, in my experience, the real Perfect Couples quietly get on with it. They don’t give a single FUCK about what people think of their relationship. They don’t post perfectly-framed and edited photos and Moments of their life on Instagram. You don’t even know they exist, because they’re busy focusing on the things that matter.
For them, the relationship is a fucking castle that they’re building every day, brick by brick. They know that they have each others’ backs — they have nothing to prove to their partner by grand public displays of affection or lavish gifts.
Ask folks you know who seem to be in amazing relationships how they manage so well. You may be surprised that many of them bring up the same themes over and over:
- Communication — they have the difficult conversations.
- Gratitude — they remember to say ‘Thank you’ when their partner buys the milk on the way home.
- Honesty — they expect everything they do and say to be taken at face value and do the same for their partner. No fucking mind games.
- Trust — they don’t spend time worrying about what their partner is thinking. It wastes time and energy and they recognise that worrying won’t fix it.
In any situation where you find yourself idolizing someone, think about what it is about them that you would want to have and then try to work out how to integrate that into yourself.
When you start doing this, the process of so doing will also help you understand both yourself and the thing that you’re working toward much better from the inside. It will no longer be superficial change. It’ll be right there inside you where no other fucker will be able to question it.
