The Theory of Evaluation

Posted by fxckfeelings on December 16, 2010

It’s easy to feel like a success when you’re given a gold medal; and when you’re just another schmuck getting lapped at the local track, it’s hard to take much joy from your efforts. If success is subjective, so is failure. If, however, we look at our accomplishments objectively, our lives are actually Special Olympics, and many of us who feel like losers are really champions.
–Dr. Lastname

My son makes a living and he’s a nice guy, but I don’t think he’s ever really pushed himself or lived up to his smarts. He works in a pet shop and lives with a nice girlfriend, but he’s 30 already. All his friends are professionals who own their own homes, and he cleans animal cages and rents an apartment. I wish I knew how to motivate him to do more with his life. Maybe if he went into therapy he’d discover that he’s afraid of success.

To paraphrase Fran Lebowitz, if you’re an American white Christian male and you’re not President of the United States, to some degree, you blew it.

It seems logical to say, about any bright, well-educated kid, that he could do anything if he really wanted to, particularly in this country, and that it’s a shame if he didn’t seize his opportunities.

If you truly agree with this statement or Fran’s, however, your thinking is wishful and potentially dangerous.

That’s because many bright, well-educated underachievers don’t have the ability to make much money or manage others; their brains simply don’t work that way. Some people have the brains to be a fancy Harvard psychiatrist, others have the brains to change kitty litter professionally.

If you examine the way their brains process information or deal with certain kinds of stressful situation, you find many underachievers have significant weaknesses, along with their strengths. That’s what ADD is about, for instance. When they perform poorly and it looks like they don’t care, you often find that they are trying not to care because their brains won’t let them achieve.

Even the quality of motivation—which, by its nature, seems to be something we control—has a neurological element called executive function, which we don’t. If your son’s executive function is shot, he may have trouble getting out of bed and getting going, even when his mood is fine.

Most kids want to get ahead, particularly when their performance is falling behind that of their friends. Chances are, your son isn’t a slacker by choice, but he’s discovered that things don’t go well for him when he tries to keep up.

If you look at him as if you expect more and think he lacks ambition, you’ll probably make his problem worse by making him feel like a failure. Remember, your job is to support his self-esteem, not destroy it.

Don’t worry about letting him off the hook, because life lets no one off the hook. If he could let himself off the hook, fine, he might be in the White House.

If, on looking more closely, you discover his handicaps are legitimate, accept that sad fact. Then you’ll be ready to respect the way he’s moving ahead and leading a meaningful life, in spite of the humiliation of non-special-accomplishment and disappointed expectations.

Besides, if he’s not unhappy in retail, there’s no reason to be unhappy on his behalf. He might not be an overachiever, but that doesn’t mean he’s under achieving, either—he’s just achieving, and content to do so.

If he’s okay with his life, as simple as it, then the person who needs therapy to deal with it is you.

STATEMENT:
“I assume that the negative consequences of my son’s relatively low-level career choices are as obvious and painful to him as to me. He does not need me to echo his disappointment or frustration. If, as I suspect, there are good reasons for his choices, I will respect the fact that his negative feelings have not interfered with his making an honest living and building a solid relationship and being a good guy, and those are significant accomplishments, particularly under the circumstances.”

Having kids took the wind out of my sails and killed my ambition. I always had my ups and downs, but when I had work to do in law school, I could shut out the world and work night and day and produce beautiful, outstanding papers. Now, ten years, a couple kids and one bad post-partum depression later, I just get by. I’m a good mother and I do enough work to serve my clients, but I often don’t get moving until I’m embarrassingly far behind, I cut corners in a way I never used to, and my results are OK but never outstanding. I was a star and now I’m a hack. I wish I could figure out how to get going again.

It’s a wonderful feeling to be a contender, and there’s nothing like a total work-blitz for overcoming distraction and procrastination and producing outstanding results. You’re a winner! (This time.)

Unfortunately, you don’t necessarily control what happens next. If you start a family, your blitzing days are over. There’s less time, more distractions, more obligations, and a greater risk of being derailed completely by a sick kid or malfunctioning husband.

You’ll seldom feel that you have enough time to do a great job at work or at home. Fortunately, however, that’s not your goal, because it’s unrealistic. You’re simply trying to cover the bases before you collapse, and to appreciate what a tough achievement that is.

Then there’s the additional possibility that your executive function has not recovered from post-partum depression. It’s sad, but it happens. Long after your depression is gone, you may still have major trouble getting it together and staying focused. It feels like a lack of motivation, but it’s neurologic, like a concussion, and it’s out of your hands.

So instead of a contender, you’re walking wounded and dazed and distracted…so what. As long as you don’t define success by achievement only, and instead take into account your resources and burdens, you’re a much bigger hero now than when you were law student of the year.

You’ll never get a ticker tape parade or the thrill of victory, but you deserve congratulations from those in the know, particularly by yourself.

STATEMENT:
“It hurts to have lost that winning feeling and see my accomplishments as no better than good enough; but that’s life. I can’t allow feelings of failure to tear down what I’ve accomplished or distort my ability to judge myself on whether I’m doing my best with what I’ve got.”