Aug 11, 2014
SITE: http://www.courtneyanderson.com/swca-episode-165-help-situation-spotlight-series-i-was-taught-that-i-have-to-be-twice-as-good-as-themhellipand-i-am-exhausted.html
SHOW NOTES: In our HELP! SITUATION SPOTLIGHT™ series, we shine the light on challenges that community members have shared. This episode is, “ I Was Taught That I Have to Be Twice As Good As Them…and I Am Exhausted."
This is an episode that I feel very strongly about! The central question is who is in charge of your life? Is it you? Or, someone or something else? If you are in charge of your life then you define your goals, your value and your experiences. If you accede that power over your life to other people or entities then they will define your goals, your value and your experiences.
How much money should you make per year? What type of neighborhood should you live in? Either you will decide or someone (or something) else will decide. When do you decide that you have done your best (versus when you have more to give)? What is ‘good enough’ and what constitutes success?
When you choose to let other people or entities make these decisions they will have their own ideas of how much money you will earn (especially as it relates to how much money they earn), where you will live (by determining how much you will be able to spend on housing as part of your salary) and everything else in your life. If you elect to exercise your own personal power over your life, then you decide. Are you qualified for a job? You decide. How much money will you earn this year? You decide. What type of neighborhood will you live in? You decide.
What if you are operating under the understanding that everything you do is weighed down by some aspects of who you are? That you are running the race of life with heavy weights around your ankles that slow you down? That the weights make you have to run twice as fast as other people (those without weights) just to have any opportunity at finishing (or competing to win) the race?
Many of us have cultural, societal, family, or other group feedback that taught us from an early age that we are weighed down. That when we run in the race of life we have to overcompensate for who we are (e.g., gender, ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic group, national origin, disabilities, color, size, etc.) by laboring at least twice as hard as those who are free of the weights we bear. Are some of us given specific information that who we are is a liability and that we have to work at least twice as hard as people without our burdens? Yes.
Here is an example of this language (being twice as good) from a fictional television show out of the US, Scandal:
“Rowan: Did I not raise you for better? How many times have I told you? You have to be what?
Olivia: Twice as good.
Rowan: You have to be twice as good as them to get half of what they have.” (http://www.salon.com/2013/10/04/scandals_racially_charged_motto_you_have_to_be_twice_as_good_as_them/)
Here is an example of this language (being twice as good) from a biography title about a real life US former Secretary of State, “Twice As Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power.” (http://www.amazon.com/Twice-As-Good-Condoleezza-Power/dp/B001FOR6EI) I have to share that I was in the audience a few years ago at an educational event where Ms. Rice was the keynote speaker. She was eloquent and powerful.
What do a fictional television show and a real life biography have in common that results in the language regarding being “twice as good” appearing? The most simple similarities are [...]
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