you vs. the people you admire
I have a penchant to place my role models on unreachable pedestals. I study their work and conclude there’s something fundamentally different about them: inherently gifted, built with materials I was simply not given. Often, I visualize an invisible barrier that separates “people like them” from “people like me.” (I later learned this was a thought process I’ve been unconsciously fostering).
Such narrative is comforting in a way. If they’re special, then my hesitation to act upon my goals becomes justified, right? Anyway, via enough self-help rabbit holes and an epiphany so stupidly obvious it should’ve come sooner, I realize the most discernible difference between me and the people I admire is that they are going for it. Literally that’s it.
It’s not even confidence or some hidden, godly advantage. Authors I admire, creatives I envy, artists I secretly measure myself against – they simply start. They fumble, iterate, and show up again regardless of their output. Your role models aren’t operating on a higher plane of human capability. They’ve just trained themselves to relentlessly do the work, to embrace the messiness that I, however, tend to overthink to death.
Of course, such epiphany will not wholly obliterate my fear of inadequacy, but it reframes it instead. I’m an avid believer admiring someone can be an effective roadmap; and every awkward attempt and failed experiment is a small bridge over the chasm you once believed separated you from the “naturally gifted.” After all, the pedestal exists only in your mind.