I’ve been thinking a lot about pedestals.
In one of my favorite books, Conversations with Friends, the main character’s best friend says to her, “You think everyone you like is special.” Well I too think everyone I like is special. I hold my friends and loved ones in high regard, and if you’re a celebrity and I don’t know you I hold you in even higher regard! Thinking highly of people is, in part, what it means to love them, but that’s not all there is to it.
When I put someone up on a pedestal, that means I exist below the pedestal, on the dusky, unkempt dirt floor. I look up at my pedestal people and think, “Wow, they’re so amazing.” And then I think, “I could never do what they do. I could never be as good as them.”
In the running world, who do I hold up on pedestals? There’s my friends who are faster and stronger than me, and then there are pro runners like Lauren Fleshman, who I admire for her multi-hyphenate creativity, as she is also a writer, a podcaster, and an advocate in women’s sports. I admire Makenna Myler because she always seems to be having fun in both running and parenting, and she does cool things like PR in a charity mile while wearing jeans.
Holding these people up on pedestals does them a disservice by assuming everything is easy for them, and it does me a disservice by telling myself things are supposed to be easy, and if they’re not, something’s wrong with me.
What’s worse, sometimes I am the one up on the pedestal, looking down on others with my chest puffing out, showing off all my superiority.
So I’m thinking I should just get rid of the pedestals altogether. If we all came down to the dirt floor, and spruced it up a little, I’d just be looking around at a bunch of other humans. I wouldn’t be more or less capable, more or less prone to error, more or less interesting than anyone else.
I’m reminded of a phrase I heard in a guided meditation, “I am just as worthy as anyone else.” I’m not less worthy than others, and I’m also not more. What would it mean to value the ordinary, in myself, and in others?