A few weeks ago, I complimented my friend on her thorough annotations for English class, and her immediate response was, “No what, yours are ten times better than mine!” Before I could respond, another classmate added on, with a smile, “My god, you tryhards are really out here raising the bar for the rest of us!” Though it was just a joke, her response as well as my friend’s made me realize how often we undercut any compliments given to other people or even ourselves. Our tendency to do this is rooted in the fact that we define ourselves based on comparing ourselves to others, a mindset that needs to be dismantled.
It’s common for MSJ students to tend to reject or one-up any compliments that we receive: “What do you mean — you’re better than me at _____” or “No, I’m not good at _____ at all” are common responses to compliments. Some say these comments as humble responses, but for many, it’s caused by the comparison culture at MSJ. Since many of us hold ourselves to high standards in terms of the work we produce or grades we get, it’s easy to look around and compare ourselves to peers that we feel like are doing better. In healthy doses, this comparison can help motivate us to do better; however, when we’re constantly comparing ourselves, which often ends up being the case, we start to define our self-worth based on how we measure up to others. This mindset can lead to us feeling like we are undeserving of praise: if there’s another student who is better than us, how good are we really? Believing that we can’t be good at something simply because someone else might be better is inherently flawed and leads to larger problems of self-esteem that can heavily impact our view of ourselves. Every time we see ourselves undeserving of compliments and reject them, we reinforce the idea that we are “not good,” which can cause more insecurity in our capabilities.
Undercutting compliments given to us not only impacts ourselves but the people around us: when other students hear these comments, it may prompt them to start making comparisons of their own. If a student who sees you as “better” than them hears you rejecting praise, they may feel even less worthy of any compliments given to them. Overall, it creates a situation where students attempt to place their self worth on an inequality by ordering themselves: her > him > me > etc. However, self worth is such a complex idea that isn’t solely defined by capability, especially in comparison to others, making it impossible to quantify with such an equation.
The idea that our self worth is tied to our ability to perform well and our comparison with how well our peers are doing is ingrained into MSJ: it’s something that will take a long time to fix. However, we can take the first steps by reminding ourselves not to undercut compliments from others. The fact that someone excels at something does not mean that you can’t as well; your success is not invalidated by someone else’s success.
