I think people are quick to challenge this type of impression because it pattern matches to known cognitive distortions involved in things like depression, or known insecurities in certain competitive situations.
For example, consider that most everyone will structure their lives such that their weaknesses are downplayed and their positive features are more prominent. This can happen either by choice of activity (e.g. the stereotypical geek avoids social games) or by more overt communication filtering (e.g. most people don’t talk about their anger problems). Accordingly, it’s never hard to find information that confirms your own relative incompetence, if there’s some emotional tendency to look for it.
Aside from that, a great question is “to what ends am I making this comparison?” I find it unlikely that you have a purely academic interest in the question of your relative competence.
First, it can often be useful to know your relative competence in a specific competitive domain. But even here, this information is only one part of your decision process: You may be okay with e.g. choosing a lower expected rank in one career over a higher rank in another because you enjoy the work more, or find it more compatible with your values, or because it pays betters, or leaves more time for you family, or you’re risk averse, or it’s more altruistic, etc. But knowing your likely rank along some dimension will tell you a bit about the likely pay-offs of competing along that dimension.
But what is the use of making an across-the-board self-comparison?
Suppose you constructed some general measure of competence across all domains. Suppose you found out you were below average (or even above average). Then what? It seems you’re in still in the same situation as before: You still must choose how to spend your time. The general self-comparison measure is nothing more than the aggregate of your expected relative ranks on specific sub-domains, which are more relevant to any specific choice. And as I said above, your expected rank in some area is far from the only bit of information you care about.
As an aside, a positive use for a self-comparison is to provide a role-model. If you find yourself unfavorably compared to almost everyone, consider yourself lucky that you have so many role-models to choose from! Since you are probably like other people in most respects, you can expect to find low-hanging fruit in many areas where you have poor relative performance.
But if you find (as many people will) that you’ve hit the point of diminishing returns regarding the time you spend comparing yourself to others, perhaps you can simply recognize this and realize that it’s neither cowardly nor avoidant to spend your mental energy elsewhere.
I think people are quick to challenge this type of impression because it pattern matches to known cognitive distortions involved in things like depression, or known insecurities in certain competitive situations.
For example, consider that most everyone will structure their lives such that their weaknesses are downplayed and their positive features are more prominent. This can happen either by choice of activity (e.g. the stereotypical geek avoids social games) or by more overt communication filtering (e.g. most people don’t talk about their anger problems). Accordingly, it’s never hard to find information that confirms your own relative incompetence, if there’s some emotional tendency to look for it.
Aside from that, a great question is “to what ends am I making this comparison?” I find it unlikely that you have a purely academic interest in the question of your relative competence.
First, it can often be useful to know your relative competence in a specific competitive domain. But even here, this information is only one part of your decision process: You may be okay with e.g. choosing a lower expected rank in one career over a higher rank in another because you enjoy the work more, or find it more compatible with your values, or because it pays betters, or leaves more time for you family, or you’re risk averse, or it’s more altruistic, etc. But knowing your likely rank along some dimension will tell you a bit about the likely pay-offs of competing along that dimension.
But what is the use of making an across-the-board self-comparison?
Suppose you constructed some general measure of competence across all domains. Suppose you found out you were below average (or even above average). Then what? It seems you’re in still in the same situation as before: You still must choose how to spend your time. The general self-comparison measure is nothing more than the aggregate of your expected relative ranks on specific sub-domains, which are more relevant to any specific choice. And as I said above, your expected rank in some area is far from the only bit of information you care about.
As an aside, a positive use for a self-comparison is to provide a role-model. If you find yourself unfavorably compared to almost everyone, consider yourself lucky that you have so many role-models to choose from! Since you are probably like other people in most respects, you can expect to find low-hanging fruit in many areas where you have poor relative performance.
But if you find (as many people will) that you’ve hit the point of diminishing returns regarding the time you spend comparing yourself to others, perhaps you can simply recognize this and realize that it’s neither cowardly nor avoidant to spend your mental energy elsewhere.