Am I A Failure?- A Psychological Study
Like 40 million people in the United States, I lost my job because of the Coronavirus. Before the virus, I was a day away from house managing my first Off-Broadway show, a job I have worked towards for years. While most people are telling me that this is “normal” for the time I am living in and how I “shouldn’t feel bad” about it, I am sitting in my room feeling as if I am a complete failure.
How is this possible?
Last month I graduated from my Master’s Degree with a 3.9 GPA. I had three jobs before the Quarantine. I lost 15lbs in the past month. Before the Quarantine, I was a playwright for a prestigious writing retreat… yet for some reason, I feel like a burden… a complete failure. Even though it doesn’t look like it on my social media accounts, I struggle every day with this overwhelming depression that has been telling me that I am a complete freeloader who doesn’t deserve happiness.
The answer?
An extremely annoying feature of our mind that states: Our mind doesn’t think in terms of absolutes. Our minds judge relative to reference points. What does this mean? We are constantly judging ourselves based on a meaningless comparison. This is shown by numerous psychology studies for example: In 1995, Victoria Husted Medvac did a study on the happiness of winners at the 1992 Olympics. In her study, she discovered the bronze medalist were happier than silver medalist because a silver medalist thinks about “what could have been” while the bronze medalist is happy to be there. Another study that proves that we think more based on reference points is a 2003 study by Andrew E. Clark that compared the well-being of the unemployed in different cities in the U.K. In Clark’s study, we learn that people are more likely to be depressed if the unemployment rate in their city are low and we find that there is a higher well-being when the unemployment rate is high. This is because we tend to compare ourselves to the people around us. If more people are unemployed then we feel less alone.
Think about it.
We spend hours a day scrolling through social media seeing how “lush” our friends are living. For me, it’s watching my best friends continue to do their jobs at home and be able to save up their money for their own apartment or seeing my friends be able to peacefully protest while I have to stay home.
I thought my days of comparing myself to people were done when I graduated from school. I thought I was desensitized to this. I have been going to performing arts schools where literal movie stars roamed the halls with me since I was 13 years old. Yet here I am thinking, “Dear God, my sister-in-law’s sister is a nurse and she’s only a year older than me. God, what am I doing with my life?” and “Shit, my best friend was just published, I need to get my act together so that I can get published one day too”. It’s important to note that I am incredibly proud of all the people in my life who are thriving, but these thoughts make me realize that I need to find a way to stop comparing myself to them.
So, what am I doing?
I will say that typing this blog post alone has helped me get a lot of my negative feelings out there. Personally, I decided to limit my time on social media. I went as far as deleting the apps on my phone and started taking more online classes. I’ve also started writing down five things I am grateful for every night to help me see the blessings that I have around me. Another thing I have done is volunteer more, my position at the Crisis Text Line helps me see how I could use my life experiences to help other people with their challenging time. Finally, I have decided to try something called a “Stop-Technique” where, if I catch myself doing it, I would say “Stop!” out loud when I begin comparing myself to someone else.
When I was in high school my best friend Asabea noticed that I was hindering my personal growth because I was comparing myself to the people around me. As a response she sent me this: “You are not behind in life. There’s no schedule or timetable that we all must follow…You are not falling behind. It’s just not your time.” Some days when I’m feeling low, I read that and then continue to do the small things that will help me gain the success that I want in the future. Hopefully, if you are reading this and have a tendency to compare yourself to others, these techniques could help you too.
I’m sure you’re saying to yourself, “but Lauren, how do you know all of this?”
During this Quarantine, I took time out of my day to take Dr. Laura Santos’s “Science of Well-Being” class that she holds at Yale. This class was available for free on Coursera and I wanted to take full advantage of the time I had available. I’ve also been listening to her podcast “The Happiness Lab”, which I highly recommend. In this class, Dr. Santos explains how we can live a happier life with an explanation as to why we were sad. She also gives her students weekly “rewirements” to help people find genuine inner happiness. If you have a love for psychology like I do and want to find more ways to be happier, I highly recommend taking her class.
Last week I discussed what people could do for the Black Lives Matter Movement. This month, for every blog post that addresses a specific topic, I will list a few BIPOC people that paved the way for that field. This week I spoke on psychology so here is a list of 5 BIPOC psychologist that made a difference in their field.
1. Kenneth Bancroft Clark (1914-2005): concluded that segregation was psychologically damaging leading to the Supreme Court decision that outlawed it.
2. Inez Beverly Prosser (1891-1934): After learning that African-American students in integrated schools experienced more maladjustment & felt less secure than in segregated schools, she spent the last seven years of her life teaching at historical Black colleges.
3. Robert Lee Williams II (1930-PRESENT): Founding member of the National Association of Black Psychologists. His studies concluded that African-Americans were NOT intellectually inferior to European Americans but the differences in speech and experience led to bad IQ results. He thus went on to create Ebonics.
4. Joseph L. White (1932-PRESENT): After establishing the first Black Studies Program at San Francisco State University, White concluded that “white psychology” to African-Americans often led to incorrect research. This caused him to fight for the creation of “black psychology” because psychology created by white people could never adequately apply to define African-Americans.
5. Herman George Canady (1901-1970): Canady was the first psychologist to examine the role of the race of an examiner as a bias factor in IQ testing. His thesis is based around establishing an adequate testing environment in which African-American students could thrive.
Here is a list of websites that helped me make today’s blog post:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/15726123_When_Less_Is_More_Counterfactual_Thinking_and_Satisfaction_Among_Olympic_Medalists
https://www.activeminds.org/blog/10-african-african-american-psychologists-you-should-know/
https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00586249/document
