Blog of Revelation

I can't remember whether I've talked about impostor syndrome before, but it is a very real problem. This article summarizes it nicely.

Here is my Gist anyway: In graduate school, or any academic environment really, there is a tendency for people to feel inferior to their peers. This can escalate to the point where you feel that you really don't belong in the position that you have found yourself in. You get a feeling that you've fooled everyone into believing that you are smarter than you actually are and any second now they will all realize how incredibly stupid you've been all along.

I feel like an impostor all the time, but I've learned a while ago how get over it. I've simply forced myself to remember one simple thing: We don't all have the same skills. For example, if I had to rank my understanding of higher level statistics on a scale from 1 to 10, I would put myself at about a 6 thanks in large part to the ton of math courses I've taken througout my academic career (I would put the average High School Grad at about a 2 and the average linguistics professor at about a 5). However, I often interact with colleagues who are at about a 9 or a 10 and they make me feel like an idiot, even though I know that I'm more knowledgeable than a bunch of my peers.

But the key isn't really to remember that I'm still better than other smart people. This is because when I interact with those people I'll realize that their knowledge of something like the sounds or syntactic patterns of the world's languages is at a 9 where mine is at a 2. So when I need to talk about some aspect of linguistic typology with them, they make me feel like a complete moron (though certainly unintentionally). So no matter where I turn I find people who are better than me in everything, even though I might be pretty good at many of those things.

I suspect the way that some people deal with this issue is by picking one particular topic and striving for a 10. Then, whenever they need an ego boost, they steer the conversation toward their topic and blow everyone out of the water. I'll never be able to do that because I spend too much time sticking my nose in other fields like anthropology, astronomy, sociology, etc. (the very typical 'jack of all trades, master of none' syndrome). I can't seem to find the motivation or drive to focus on one particular topic for a very long period of time so I find myself achieving a rank of 5 in everything. Of course, I'll never be able to achieve this goal.

One simply can't be good at everything... I'll always be a poor group leader since I don't like telling people what to do unless they annoy me (and it's not good to be an annoyed leader). I'll never be a good musician since even to be mediocre on the guitar requires that you practice at least once a year. I'll never be a good marathon runner since there's simply not enough time in the day for me to piddle away on some circular track when the internet has a new article about never before contacted tribes in the Amazon and a new TED talk video about climate change.

So I wonder whether I should re-think my strategy. Maybe I need to seek out my 10. But then what if I get my 10 and it's not fulfilling? I seem to be happy doing what I'm doing now even though I know there will never be a conclusion...

My points are these: All of us experience a time when we feel stupid. But I'm pretty sure that we all experience a time when we all feel smart. We should always try to remember both of those times (I hate it when mechanically inclined people try to make me feel like a jackass about something like auto repair, that's such an assholish thing to do. Oh, and I absolutely hate the word noob for the exact same reason). Career decisions should only be made while keeping these things in mind.