One nice thing about thinking about life in terms of the roles we play—i.e., \u201crole dynamics\u201d— is that it takes the pressure off of having to \u201cbe\u201d wonderful. I am not sure, but suspect that many young people still are caught up in the semantic jungle of labels. How can I be okay when I know I\u2019m so terrible or wretched or mediocre? Answer: We play many roles, hundreds of roles, and many of those have many role components. It\u2019s okay to be good at some things, bad at some things, and in the middle in most things. That\u2019s how it is for everyone.<\/p>\n
Some folks are known as great because they do some things quite well and don\u2019t make much trouble with the things they don\u2019t do well. They delegate, get someone else to do it, ask for help, play it down, don\u2019t make a fuss about it. This is the truth for almost everyone! The greatest people\u2014the ones you tend to admire or envy\u2014have many faults, foibles, weaknesses, roles where they have no talent, etc.\u2014but they don\u2019t go out of their way to present these roles to the general public.<\/p>\n
People who are perceived more as \u201closers\u201d manage to present to the world their less skilled roles. In that case, they give the impression of their less-than-adequate status. Or they pretend their mediocrity is good when it\u2019s obvious that it isn\u2019t. But they are in fact potentially winners if they could find what they do well naturally and get on with developing their genuine talents. We all have them.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also okay to have a number of roles where you\u2019re not even trying to be great or better-than; you\u2019re just one of the folks playing along, middle of the road. There are a number of roles in life where that\u2019s a fine strategy, clubs and activities where being outstanding is not needed. We just want someone to be part of us and help us along. I have several clubs where that\u2019s my status and it\u2019s okay with me. <\/p>\n
The whole thing with identity is a bit contaminated by competition: The message in school and with tests is that you have to be better-than, though they don\u2019t always say it. The truth in life is that many roles don\u2019t require superiority so much as simple adequacy\u2014can you do the job? Never mind better-than; just good enough. The point of this mini essay is that I would have liked to have been told about this concept of what I call \u201crole distribution\u201d when I was a teenager. It might have lessened the not-very-intense but still uncomfortable inferiority complex I had then. It would have taken the pressure off to know that we all play many roles and don\u2019t have to be good at most of them. I would have cut myself a little slack, let go of feeling guilty and ashamed about things that I couldn\u2019t really help. <\/p>\n
What I\u2019ve found as a life strategy that works is to work to do better in my chosen areas of talent and enjoyment: work to celebrate in modest ways those roles that are fun but are in keeping with less actual talent; and delegating out or avoiding those roles where I have little or no talent. But it took me a while to work out this tool for promoting serenity and self-acceptance. I\u2019d like to get the word out also because it seems to me that the general culture doesn\u2019t make these fine discriminations and rather suggests a kind of generalized value that leaves people feeling vulnerable in their self-esteem. My self-esteem is fine because I distribute my sense of competence around to roles where they fit, and I don\u2019t depend for my self-esteem on roles where I have little competence. That\u2019s where I shift from being better-than to being part-of and good enough. <\/p>\n
A bit of spiritual perspective helps, too, I must say. Feeling that there\u2019s something wonderful going on\u2014the evolution of consciousness in the universe\u2014and that I get to help, even though it might only be in the tiniest way\u2014still grants me a bigger perspective in which I can forgive and relax about my faults and limited-ness. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One nice thing about thinking about life in terms of the roles we play—i.e., \u201crole dynamics\u201d— is that it takes the pressure off of having to \u201cbe\u201d wonderful. I am not sure, but suspect that many young people still are caught up in the semantic jungle of labels. How can I be okay when I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-literacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}