A Reminder to Pat Yourself on the Back

They say it’s essential to take time to give yourself a pat on the back for every goal achieved, every big task completed, and every dream you make come true. Keeping in mind a list of things you’ve done well and what you’re grateful for supports mental health and helps avoid burnouts. But when you grow, outperform, or achieve, you become a part of a narrower circle of people who have done the same. This fact slaps you on the face, devalues and resets your system of ‘good-job’s and ‘well-done’s, and makes old efforts seem worthless. I’m typing these thoughts out to zoom in and examine my own milestones. If anything like that has ever happened to you, please share, I’d appreciate it.

At high school, out of 30 students, only two had outstanding English results, my best friend and me. Back then, we were teens, the feeling of superiority was new to us, and I have to admit it felt fantastic. Maybe that was one of the main reasons I decided to keep learning English and entered the “English Language and Literature” program at university. Turned out all the girls who had the same ‘superior’ position at their schools had also chosen that program, and I wasn’t different or special because of my knowledge and skills anymore. It took me some time and a lot of effort to prove that I could do more, study better, outperform, achieve.

Fast-forward to six years later. After several months of preparing all the paperwork and anxiously checking my account every day for five months straight, I received a dream-came-true email: our application was approved, and the last step was sending passports for Canadian visas. From that moment, we were absolutely sure that we were immigrating and starting a new life from scratch. Needless to say, our friends and family got excited and surprised after we shared the news. All the possible adjectives and emotions were in the air: you’re crazy; that’s incredible; how did you do that; no way; I would never dare. But then, after we moved to Canada and started meeting Russian-speaking people, there was nothing special about us anymore. They had all done the same thing, got the same paperwork, and in many cases had to go through a much more complicated process to come to Canada. Mission complete – start another one.

The last event that had that explosive and then numbing effect was me landing a dream job I thought I’d never get. It’s still a mystery why my boss decided to take a chance on me, but although I felt special and chosen – yes, like in Disney movies – in the beginning, this feeling is long gone. I just made another step on this ladder of narrowing features and talents: from the girl who knew English at school to the student who had to prove that she deserves to be appreciated; from an alien-immigrant among my friends to a norm in a country of immigrants; from an unexperienced enthusiast to one of many content writers and marketers.

Going from one circle of somehow special people to another is a closed loop. Apparently, I got addicted to being unique, praised, and appreciated. Is it because my grandma would always compare me to other kids and say that I was smarter, better, prettier? Is it just a part of my personality? Is it what “rat race” means for me? I don’t know the answers, and to be honest, I’m tired of trying to find out what made me feel like this and whether I should change it or not. Looking back at a 20-year-old me, I can see differences, and I keep flowing, evolving from one state into another. Maybe in ten years, I will stop searching for a narrower group of people where I can belong because I’m special. But now I’m figuring out which circle I want to enter next: another round of from-scratch zero-experience jobs? Diving deeper into what I’ve learned over the past year? Narrowing down what I love doing and focusing on it? Let’s see.