Chloe Leal
Oh and also none of it matters anyway.
When I was six, I decided to enter into a coloring contest for kids at some nearby restaurant. It was springtime themed, with bunnies and flowers and sunshine. The winner of the contest would receive twenty-five rand. When you’re at that age, that’s about the equivalent of a diamond mine. Oh, the things young Chloe could do with that money. I took that coloring page home and spent all day working on it, making sure my clumsy self didn’t color outside the lines or, god forbid, use the wrong shade. After my long day of hard work and presumably many homemade choc chip cookies, I was ready. Ready to enter that contest, ready to win the cash, sure that it was going to be me. I mean it had to be me, after all the hard work I had done!
Spoiler alert: I didn’t win. I couldn’t understand… I had put my all into it. My very best! To be fair, though, I’m pretty sure whatever kid won had their parents color in their paper. I didn’t win the twenty-five rand and even though it was the best of my ability, I didn’t manage to pull it off. I didn’t have the prettiest coloring page. It set childhood me into a pit of sadness, of envy, of self-doubt. I wasn’t the best. And what did I learn from that experience? Absolutely nothing, because instead of focusing on what could be better, I focused on why I was worse!
There is always someone better than you. It is a fact that takes a lot of emotional confidence to come to terms with. There’s always going to be someone who colors better, who writes better, who sings better. And that’s okay, I think as human beings we tend to at times link self happiness with doing better or being better, but the truth is none of it really matters. As long as you are being the best you, then why compare yourself to your peers or worse the millionaires, models and famous people who are constantly screened across our social media pages.
Working and studying in various environments, the hospitality industry for one, I’ve come to the realization that life is about collaboration. Your strengths are another’s weaknesses, and vice versa. No one person is good at everything.
Within your field of passion, whether it’s photography, design, styling, grooming–– whatever it is that you do, there are people that you look up to. There are people whose work you idolize, who you look to for inspiration. You know they are the best and you strive to better yourself to be among the likes of them. When it’s someone established, you become inspired to reach up to be at the same level as him or her. And make yourself better.
It is seemingly much harder to accept when you’re looking at the work of your peers; someone on the same professional level as you with a skill-set you wish that you had. But the idea is essentially the same; you see their work, and you strive to better yourself to be among the likes of them. So why is it so difficult to put aside the ugliness of envy or resentment and instead use their work in the same way as when you look to your idols?
Perhaps it is an issue of pride; few will gladly admit they “look up to” a peer. What if this pride and these envious feelings were cast aside to instead fuel and spark your creative energy? Channeling those feelings into bettering yourself and your own skill-set are nothing but beneficial to your own creativity. Instead of resentment, it can be turned into discussion, collaboration, experience–– a learning process to your own benefit and, perhaps to theirs as well. For maybe there is something you know that they don’t.
