Have you ever written a review of yourself? Ever broken down what you've done for the last 365 days? Ever had to crack open the old, dusty brain-book of what's been coming out of your mouth, your pen, your keyboard, since July of last year, and put it down for someone to read and decide on a value to tag against you in the big list?
I won't mention names, and I won't say definitively that something of the kind is happening, right now, on my desktop, because who knows anymore what's confidential, but I want to share a little insight that comes from the process of corporate introspection.
Most of my work experience has been characterized by other people writing reviews about me. From the chintzy, Office Depot-prepackaged disciplinary form that I got back at Babbage's for playing Turok on the N64 when I was supposed to be cleaning the store, to the "Excellent" review I got at Sierra just a few months before I left for my contract position at Microsoft Game Studios, everything has been a cycle of reporting up the chain and waiting for the money or the mustard gas to come falling down, but not really having to face up to the mirror as the whole year-long enchilada, melty cheese, sour cream blobs and all, and tell someone else what it looked like when you put it all together.
I remember reporting to you that someone I trust and respect told me I wasn't doing enough. Was he saying that I could do more? Undoubtedly.
But what you might not know about this person in question (let's call them a PIQ), is that they are heavily invested in seeing my future broaden and bloom - this PIQ gets the idea that we, while perhaps caged in by our own fears, insecurities, and detriments from childhood onward, are indeed capable of much more than we often think.
You see, while our PIQ hasn't outright said it, I think it's a clever trick, and a wonderful one. Perhaps they knew I had pride. Perhaps they knew that I was as proud of my achievements this year as they. For when they said, "No, you haven't done enough", I might, quite reasonably stand up and counter, "That's bullshit - this year has been an incredible year and here's why," and reasons would come right out like gumballs from a ritalin-soaked Tom Servo head, POP, POP, POP.
And they might look at me, as if they expected it the whole time, and say, "Now go put that in your review. And be sure to be as passionate about your successes to that piece of paper as you were to me."
Far away, the gong goes BWOMM in the Hall of Holy Shit.
See, when people ask us - well, you try it. Go up to a friend and ask them to ask you how you'd rate yourself. Then see what you have the guts to say. "Eh, pretty average," is what I think first. Nice, safe answer, Sherlock. But it doesn't mean anything, doesn't get us anywhere, doesn't help, because it's not inspiring us to change one way or the other.
If you're average, you're all right, but that's about it. It means you don't score D's, you don't score A's. It means you don't make $5,000 a year, and you don't make $500,000 a year. It means you aren't an astronaut, and you're not the devil's right hand. It means you don't rape, pillage, or steal, but you're not exactly pulling landmines out of an Afghanistan playground for Amnesty International right now, either.
We deserve better than that socially-enforced crock of shit. We only do it because it's safe, not because it's accurate. It's not even a good question, it's not specific, it's loaded with hidden agendas and escape hatches but we accept it anyway, like it'll really make a difference and get us into heaven if we tell the world, just one more goddamn time, "I'm pretty much like everyone else."
And before you get the idea that you have to be in space or in hell to make this sort of thing change, stop. Stop right there. Remember what I said - the average answer doesn't exactly do us six ways from Sunday, and why? Because it doesn't inspire us. Inspiration to take the next step on your path, whatever it is, is the key. What you can do, you can do right now. What's to be proud of? Everything that's been done by your hands, by your mind, by your heart, that's been done right, is all fair game.
So there's the reality, there's also the human trick. This brings us to the paradox (Tyler can shoot me right now for saying "paradox"), of what you are to yourself, and what you are to others.
Perhaps we get raked over the coals enough by others when they view what we've done, what we are. And perhaps you yourself feel like an achievementoscopy isn't going to feel good no matter how much KY Jelly you put on it before it goes in.
But I'll tell you a secret. When you break it down, when you remember one thing - just one thing - that you did right for yourself or another, with no bones, with no cheap martyrdom, no passive sniping at how it wasn't as good as it could have been, when you cherish it, warts and all, for being there as an object of your own making, something neat happens. You smile.
Just a little, at the beginning, but then you get warm inside, realizing that when you put the rubber to the road, this whole human machine thing works. You start to see how one girder laid upon another can build a bridge, how one brick upon another builds a house, how one protein folded upon an RNA chain can - alright, I still can't figure out how the fuck that one works.
Soon, the feelings build into a little ditty I call a "sense of accomplishment". Heard of it? If you haven't heard from yours in a while, you will, or at least you'll start to, if you've read down this far, because I'm going to ask you to do yourself a favor, right now.
Write, on paper, on a comment to this post, in an e-mail, wherever you'll see it, maybe for years if you never clean your room, one thing you've done in the last week, that you are proud to have done.
If you've done this, and haven't blown it off, created something specifically to please me or snipe at me or tie this in any way back to me - if you truly did it for, about, and in complete collaboration only with yourself, I am close to a hundred-percent on this: you'll start to feel a little bit more like you want to do it again. You'll feel inspired, not by some NASA poster of the earth, or by some before-they-were-cool Evanescence concert ticket stub on your kitchen counter, but by yourself.
Inspired - by yourself? Can it be? You tell me.
I'll start. This week, I am very proud that I have written down an account of my last year at work, detailing my accomplishments, my hard work, and my successes. And I'll just do one more for extra credit. I'm proud to have written this entry, because I believe it, and I've felt it work within myself, and placebo or not, the concept of building a positive feedback loop within myself is important enough to me to want to share it with all of you.
Now get out of here.
