I remember listening to a podcast with a comedian talking about being a young up and comer and feeling jealous of other established, successful comedians. He mentioned that instead of enjoying comedy, he would think things like, "Why didn't I come up with that bit?" This type of jealousy is an easy feeling to fall into for someone young and ambitious. Rather than admiring those who go before you and succeed, the ambition and drive that one feels can sour into something like resentment. After all, jealousy and admiration are two sides of the same coin like stubbornness and perseverance or confidence and hard-headedness.
There were a few years recently where I struggled to engage with any running related content. I am an avid listener of many podcasts, but I purposefully stayed away from listening to shows about running because people talking about their successes would make me feel bad about my own perceived lack of accomplishments. It's an ugly impulse, but one that I think is probably pretty common and is easy to understand. For someone goal-oriented and eager for progress, listening to other athletes who have "made it," in some sense, can be simultaneously inspiring and discouraging. Listening to a podcast about a particular achievement, like an FKT or a win at a big race, doesn't give one the context for all the work behind that singular accomplishment. Often, questions can arise in the mind like, "why haven't I achieved something like that? Obviously I am working hard, too!"
Again, these impulses are kind of ugly and unfortunate, but I have certainly felt them myself. Any kind of resentment felt comes down to projection because I feel I'm not where I want to be in my running career. But even that's not entirely true. As I explored in my last blog post, my story in running so far is one of continuous progress and there is lots of which to be proud. It would be silly to focus on how I am deficient when compared to other more successful athletes. But in life, not just in athletics, the impulse to compare oneself to others is strong. It probably has an evolutionary basis that may have made sense when we were wandering around in tribes but is just maladaptive in a modern environment.
Ultimately, what did multiple years of ignoring running content do for me? Nothing! It may have allowed me not to confront ugly emotions within myself, but it also deprived me of learning from people more experienced and more successful than myself. That's why I titled this post "The Jealousy Trap." Being so self centered in this unhealthy way led me to ignore potentially helpful pieces of information. Since I've been engaging with running content again in the past year, I feel like I've learned so much from listening to people like Jeff Browning, Mike McKnight, and others talk about their experiences in races.
My swim coach in college used to tell us to "Steal what you can from others." He was talking about techniques and mindsets related to training, and it is great advice. One of the reasons that athletes get better generation to generation is that the folks that come before offer knowledge and advice to those coming after them. What a ridiculous impulse to ignore that advice just because it might make me feel like I'm not "successful."
I'm happy to say that I'm no longer in the negative "jealousy" mindset and have transitioned to something much more positive. Ultrarunning is such a supportive community and there is this real sense that we are all in this together, testing the limits of human endurance and pushing each other to be the best. To other young ultrarunners who have felt a similar way, there is no need to judge oneself or others; jealousy is a normal emotion, especially when passion is involved. But when you're passionate about something, you should try to let it make you more excited about the endeavor as a whole, not sour and resentful towards those who may be a few steps ahead in the process.
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