The toxic culture of overachievement

Under-40 achievers lists. Hundred per cent cutoffs for college admissions. Thirty things to do before you are 30.

The list is endless, of what we must experience and achieve quickly. We glorify accepted standards of achievements--the right college, the best job, the ‘perfect’ body, the highest designation. And the younger it comes, the more successful we are.

The idea of ‘achievement’ has shifted from the personal domain to the public one. What the world recognizes as an achievement is one, and what we may have desired remains a personal feeling, and delegitimised. Comparison has become the key to describing achievement, where the self is eclipsed.

Hark back to a macro look. India, a land of limited opportunities and cut-throat competition, has induced a parenting culture of futureproofing lives. In a country where high standards of educational institutes are scarce, where job opportunities are dwindling, and fear of failure paramount, their panic was almost justified. A staid pattern of education, rising above the competition, securing a job that could be enough for survival was key. Eventually, you were to build passion in what you did, to assuage your own mind, and fulfil your responsibility. The idea of outshining others, and that your achievement counted only once you did so. This is engrained from the first time we seek admissions in schools as children when parents were pitted against one another. And once their child does get the admission they wanted, that too is an achievement. And the cycle begins from there.

Lack of equity is forgotten in the face of privilege and recognized ideas of achievements. Add to that atrocities and discriminations on the basis of gender, class, caste. Each oppressed person has to battle adversaries to be able to start competing on a level playing field against the privileged.

What this means every day is a steady attack on mental health and it starts at an age we don’t even recognize it in.

What does this mean in everyday life? Look around. There are unrealistic standards of achievements thrown at us from every corner. Hundred percent cut off to secure admissions? Are we meant to be proud of this? We should be ashamed of the pressure we put on children. Crippling anxieties, depressions are acute.

Unrealistic deadlines at workplaces, pressure management and the desire to overachieve brings with it the fear of failure. Checking and rechecking every word, every step we make fatigues the mind. In the middle of the pandemic, as people work harder and harder, it is difficult to keep the balance and sanity check. Along with that is the pressure and desire for being grateful that we have it better than several others.

Exhaustion shouldn’t be a badge of honour. We take pride in working extra hours, in exhaustion, in achieving the ‘impossible’ deadline we were to meet. Exhaustion is not a badge of honour or an acceptable standard of achievement or a prerequisite for a successful life. It leads to panic and anxiety attacks, and often physical ailments as well. The dismissal of mental health issues adds to lack of conversation that in turn induces further stress and further cyclic viciousness.

Popular culture is equally responsible for this. Glorifying the underachiever, selling supplements that keep us prepared for the breakneck pace of life, instead of questioning the nature of that itself is a testimony.

Real stories

Show us a 50-year-old who changed the course of her life at 40 and secured a PhD. A single, plump woman in her mid-30s walking the ramp untouched. Show us a transgender person becoming a successful police officer.

Show us the imperfect, the failures, those who could be written off but still survived. Show us the story of survival that bleeds the soul. Not shiny under-40 plaques, but real people, wanting to live through life, instead of mortgaging it to the future.

Help demand eco-systems that ease pressure. Ask for institutes, ask for education, ask for jobs. Call out toxic parenting and schooling. Call out unimaginable pressure in workplaces. So that no day does one calculate their worth basis someone else who achieved what seems impossible.