In this year of 50 I am finding myself more and more appreciative of the cultural phenomenon I was so lucky to live through that was the 1980s. The music. The freedom. Perhaps not the fashion… Definitely the movies. My favourites still hark from my teen years. Top Secret. Grease. Rocky Horror Picture Show. Annie. Dirty Dancing, obviously. OK, some of them (most of them?) have suffered somewhat with the passage of time and acceptability but I watch them with the heady innocence with which I found them originally and love them still. They’re stories of family holidays and slapstick comedy. Oh, and the agony of comparison that we all suffer in high school years. I wasn’t cool and I wasn’t pretty and the term ‘nerd’ was not one bestowed with affection nor received with pride. Now there’s a word that has unexpectedly improved with age!!!
I am yet to convince my own kidults to watch When Harry Met Sally. A lesson about how sometimes the one who is right for you is front of you all along and you’ll see them there when the time is right. A lesson, too, of how it’s powerful when you’re both honest and vulnerable.
Oh, how we blushed and applauded when Meg Ryan gave Billy Crystal the ultimate lesson in how a woman might just fool a man and while it’s understood that we are all equally deserving of, ummm, satisfaction, you shouldn’t just assume it’s a done deal! Well, that was awkward…
But the real hero of that hilarious scene was Estelle Reiner who, when she turned to the waiter ready for her order, uttered these famous words. I’ll have what she’s having. Yes. I think most of the restaurant revised the menu in the hopes of ordering that same dish!
There’s a phrase I’m hearing more and more these days.
You can’t be what you can’t see.
Have you heard it? It’s a glib way to explain that role models make a difference. It suggests that we all need examples in front of us to show us what might be possible and maybe, just maybe inspire us to reach for similar goals.
I get what they mean. If young girls see a woman in leadership they might dare to dream that they, too, might be CEO of a company. A person from a family of doctors dares to think they might become an artist. A customer in a restaurant chooses the same meal as the woman a few tables over in the hope she receives the same transcendent experience.
You can’t be what you can’t see…
Without comparison there are no role models there’s no-one to raise the bar for you
It’s little more a double edged sword
Adam Grant (ReThinking – with Reece Witherspoon)
Perhaps you know me well enough by now to know that there’s an imp inside me who just can’t help but pick at this idea. That imp has an issue with absolutist statements. That imp is desperate to challenge what is intended as a motivational urge.. What about the people who did something for the first time? They didn’t have a role model! They found a way to ‘be’ it despite the lack of an example to follow!!!
I am a big fan of observation and learn such a great deal through that medium. I like to see how others ‘do’ things and will always ask for a demonstration when I take on a new technique or learn a new skill. Mirror neurone work on this concept of following an example. Yes, that’s an incredibly simplified description of them but at its basis, they enable learning through recognition, comparison and then repetition.
My precious host mother told me during our last visit to her home about the different exchange students she had welcomed into her home over the years. Yes, she compared us all and was sharply astute in her Germanic way, but what stuck with me was her comments about how I showed up in their home. “You watched us so closely and copied us so carefully, Melinda. You obviously couldn’t understand what we were saying but still you learned how to fit in.” That was comparison at its best.
“Comparison is the thief of joy,” attributed to President Theodore Roosevelt and others, evokes a powerful sentiment that can be life-changing. If we compare ourselves to others, we may be left with feelings of inferiority or superiority—and neither creates an emotionally healthy human being!
Disability is natural
Whenever I hear that I think, yes, that’s true. Comparison wielded without kindness can be the thief of joy and the weapon of bullies. That imp leaps into the defence again to assert that sometimes it is a kind teacher, that sometimes comparison is the only way we are able to find success. It’s also fuel for learning and motivation. Any parent or teacher or supervisor (or dog owner) has seen this play out as clever little ones watch to learn, make mistakes, try again. My mum patiently holding her knitting needles beside me to demonstrate how to cast on and sitting opposite my left-handed sister to achieve the same thing. Nan taking the wooden spoon out of my hands to whip the cake mix but handing it back to me to complete the process, over and over until my shoulders ached but the mix was perfectly smooth and delicious just like she always made it. And it’s Mr A seeing me make quilts but then taking the sewing machine and applying those techniques to create an appliqued flag to wave in battle at Swordcraft tonight. Who could have imagined that???
How about we tweak that phrase and see if we can’t make it capture a little of what I’ve been circling in this piece.
You can’t be what you can’t see… or imagine.
What do you think? Go on. Comparison is important but use it wisely. It’s just a way to begin. Dream it. Do it. What have you got to lose?