What have I achieved in my life? I can’t really answer that with any real depth or authenticity at all. Life is our experience; the gathering of layers and then removing those layers all done through conscious and unconscious effort or no effort. To achieve is a product of our insecurity and our limited concept of who we are and what our worth is.
We teach our children to achieve a certain standard of academic excellence in their education; at toddlerhood we label their exploration as an achievement when it measures up to the desired outcome we have set of an activity for example; we teach them to measure up to others and compare themselves to their peers. We teach them to tailor who they are to meet the requirements of their educators. We teach them that what they came as must be tailored to fit into our lifestyle and our status in society. We teach them to meet our own unmet needs unconsciously. We teach them how to be anything but who they are as they are.
Why?
Can we still keep their sense of self intact and have them learn well at school as opposed to bring a graded sense of self back home? Why do we need to compare ourselves to others? Where does this idea of competition come from? I am aware of Adam Smiths model in economics. With a limited supply you can discriminate prices and even profit when demand is higher than supply.
What are we actually in competition for? And can we really compare ourselves to each other given that we are unique? Doesn’t competition imply that whatever the prize is at the end it’s the only one of its type therefore meaning prizes are limited, resources are scarce and a life of abundance is only for some?
I hail from a very a strict academic background. We were taught to achieve high grades. We were admonished if our marks fell short of what they “should” be. Our careers were chosen for us directly or by planting a seed indirectly, perhaps validating someone else in a particular career setting doing so well. I recall having extra tuitions after long days at school even at weekends. I was scared of failing I would drink straight coffee and soak my feet in ice cold water to stay awake to revise.
Some parents will encourage learning as a measure of how much has been “achieved” as opposed to a grade. Why do different grades make a difference to us? To the point that one cannot enter certain educational establishments for that same reason. Even having an education seems to be more likely taken a worthy sense of who you are and what you can add as value to society as opposed to what you really are which might have little or nothing to do with your academics.
What happens to a child who is pushed to achieve? Look around you. Your family. You. What has that sense of I need to achieve whether it’s in you unconsciously or consciously pushed you to do? Do you feel you need to market or beauty parade your value? Are you looking to be discovered and be regarded as the best there is? Do you try and promote yourself? Do we undermine what others might have just so what we think we have can be showcased? Do you feel sick and knotted when others have “achieved” and you have not?
Well, this sense of achievement is as false as is your own warped sense of self when it is masking a reality that is far from. Needing to achieve is secondary to a need for approval and acceptance of others. We didn’t get that need met as an infant so we carry on the legacy of needing to achieve to validate a sense of self that is a mere garb concealing the true Self. The garb to “achieve” is what we were taught as a measure of self worth and even after a lot of cleaning up of our crap, we are still stuck in that same cycle only maybe now calling it a different name, such as, promoting marketing interacting and what have you.
You will know what pseudonym you have for this need to achieve. You suffer a low self worth so you yearn to hear someone say wow I love your work, or I love what you did to your hair. When you just are, you appreciate these comments but they are just comments nothing more. They will bear no impact at all on how you meld yourself or how you next present yourself. You see no need to be any other way. You see no need to conform.
When a child is taught to achieve they leave their spirit. This creates a hole on them. Their sense of self is thwarted. A lot of gifted and talented children don’t do well academically because they are lost. They can’t fit in. They don’t know how to and there’s no support. As parents we can attune to our child’s spirit and keep it as intact as possible. Rather then commending them for their grades perhaps ask them what they learned or commend them when they express a sense of having learned something.
We are taught our value in how our parents value us; and then how everyone else measures us up. In all of this we lose a sense of who we are and have almost lost any form of value. It might take a real catastrophe in our lives to unleash our true sense of self.
Certificates and trophies sit and gather dust. As long as we can’t see past the sense of achievement that runs rife in our life vein, we can never be free. We will always need a platform to promote ourself; to join a society or a group to be someone.
You already are.