Gossip about Success

The best result in the last maths exam, a new personal record in the long jump competition or publishing the first book — all episodes that make the person achieving them very proud. But unfortunately, success and great performance are not always well rated. Fairly often, people with success have to deal with negative critique.

I am rather certain that all of us can recall memories from earliest school years, where almost every scholar in a class of twenty children was assigned a nickname, according to its role or reputation in the class. Besides the «cool kids», who were up to no good, the «girlies», who gossiped about everything and everyone, there often was a student nominated as the «nerd» of the class. For what I can tell from my experience, the person called a «nerd» often had the best grades, knew more than their peers and was known for taking school very seriously. This person would give up their free time to study harder and get better in a specific subject.

Growing up struggles

Nobody ever wanted to be called a «nerd». It had an uncool, often negative connotation.

In my school years, this led to a downright denial of every good performance at school. Good grades would be played down with comments like: «I didn’t even study for this, that was just luck» or «I didn’t expect this at all», when in reality hours of studying and good effort had been put into exam preparation.

Especially at that age, being good at school and working hard for grades was just not regarded as trendy or remarkable. Sometimes the «nerd» title could even lead to serious bullying and discrimination.

Later on, around the age of fifteen, when adolescents already have several issues concerning identity and self-confidence to deal with, things don’t get easier. There is often some rivalry between peers, and the majority compares oneself to same-aged people. In the sports section, for young athletes this might be the age of trying to figure out where their sport could lead them. They are discovering their capacities and talents, experiencing the results of a proper training plan and maybe smelling the beginning of a successful career. For higher-level athletes, this could mean considering turning one’s passion for the sport into a profession. The young athlete gives up their free time for training and competitions, maybe even gets permission to miss classes at school or sticks to some dietary commitments. This is not always understandable for peers or outsiders.

Athletes have to deal with incomprehension regarding why one should give up so much for «just a sport» and how the sport as a profession could possibly pay the bills. Classmates and peers would complain that the athlete has a very inflexible time schedule for meeting friends. Sometimes, unpleasant comments like «way too many muscles, it’s not even beautiful anymore» would even offend the appearance.

Attacks from outsiders

Many people from the art or music sector have to deal with such critique as well. Art is sometimes not considered as something that can be a full-time job and pay the rent. People would be confronted with comments like: «Are you sure you want to study something that you’re not sure of having a future with?». Musicians might find themselves explaining to others that working in a band doesn’t consist only of playing gigs and getting drunk afterwards but of a copious amount of practice and preparation.

Undoubtedly, there are people in many other sectors that could tell a thing or two about the gossip coming from external people, concerning their profession, passion or personal projects.

It almost seems like success and performance are things with a bad reputation and some people try to find something inglorious about it to play it down.

I would say that it is pretty natural to compare oneself to others and we might pressure ourselves to be more successful than others. Successful people are more likely to stand out from the crowd because they’re doing something different than the majority. This makes it easier for others to judge them. There is nothing wrong with comparing, to find inspiration in other people’s work and eventually explore new territories or passions. Also, there is nothing wrong with not liking something other people do or think. We are very free to think and say whatever we want and feel like. But I do think that the line between sharing an own opinion and hitting someone personally with an unpleasant comment is fairly thin.

Persevering through to succeed

I guess what many people don’t see, is what hides behind the success. It’s not all well and good in a successful person’s life, as people might think. Behind the success, there are many hours of hard work, huge discipline and loads of commitment. The athlete might ask themself every day whether it’s worth giving up further education for sport. What if they’ll never get to the top and the sports career doesn’t work out? They would have to start from zero and build up something else. They would surely like to see friends and family more often or eat that delicious calorie-bomb of a chocolate cake. The «nerd» spends hours studying over topics they don’t understand and maybe wish to be as cool as their peers. Or to have some more free time and not have to study so hard for the good grades. The artist might ask themself every day if it is worth putting so much time and effort into their work, always finding something to improve. Their days are filled with constant improvement and chasing new ideas, wondering if it will ever work out as a profession or if they should listen to the critics and apply for a mainstream, safe-paying job.

From outside, we only see the tip of the iceberg, the peak of the mountain, the result at the end. What we don’t see is the pain, the effort, the hard work and the commitments a person took to climb that mountain or write that book. Whatever the achievement is, from outside we only see a fraction of the taken efforts.

However, every single one of them has had the discipline of chasing their dream, of putting it all into achieving that goal, getting over hard days of doubting and almost quitting. Each of them has dared to step out of their personal comfort zone and go after something they dream of, which is respectable enough.

Also, everyone rates their own successes differently. For an experienced mountaineer, climbing a mountain of 3000 meters isn’t much of an effort, whereas, for a beginner, it’s a great achievement.

We should take a step back when confronted with such situations. Reconsider our judgement and our words, which can affect people on a personal level. Doing so, we will respect other people’s work and appreciate their worth. But most importantly, we should never give up working for our own goals and dreams.