You may be familiar with the Dunning-Kruger effect, whereby people who lack a certain skill are so unskilled as not to realise they're unskilled. (The most famous victim of this was the bank robber who told police, "But I wore the juice" – he thought smearing lemon juice on his face made it invisible to cameras, and was too inept a robber to realise how inept a robber he was.) Often, though, the reverse applies: a skill you do possess becomes so second-nature that it's rendered invisible, and you forget it's a skill.
Most of these, to be sure, aren't marketable. (Though who knows? Selsberg's "giving come-hither looks" and "bantering at barbecues" could surely be monetised.) But it's still cheering, in a slightly pathetic way, to conduct an inventory of one's own. Moreover, it highlights the oddness of the notion of "self-esteem". As the psychologist Paul Huack has noted, "cultivating self-esteem" invariably means tying one's sense of worth to being good at certain key things, which makes happiness conditional on not screwing up. The best bet is to replace "self-esteem" with self-acceptance. But if you must link your wellbeing to possessing skills, you might as well shoot for a comprehensive list – one that includes "sensing how many sheets the stapler can handle" and "offering guests something to drink right away". "The sum of these small virtuosities," Selsberg contends, "makes humanity human."
- Oliver Burkeman reviews Andy Selsberg's new book You Are Good At Things: A Checklist
Most of these, to be sure, aren't marketable. (Though who knows? Selsberg's "giving come-hither looks" and "bantering at barbecues" could surely be monetised.) But it's still cheering, in a slightly pathetic way, to conduct an inventory of one's own. Moreover, it highlights the oddness of the notion of "self-esteem". As the psychologist Paul Huack has noted, "cultivating self-esteem" invariably means tying one's sense of worth to being good at certain key things, which makes happiness conditional on not screwing up. The best bet is to replace "self-esteem" with self-acceptance. But if you must link your wellbeing to possessing skills, you might as well shoot for a comprehensive list – one that includes "sensing how many sheets the stapler can handle" and "offering guests something to drink right away". "The sum of these small virtuosities," Selsberg contends, "makes humanity human."
- Oliver Burkeman reviews Andy Selsberg's new book You Are Good At Things: A Checklist
No comments:
Post a Comment