Fear of Success

My biggest failure, when it comes to teaching the bagpipes, has to be a young man whome I shall call Bill. He was a quick study, and rapidly learned a lot. He could have been a great piper. However, just as he started to get good, he disappeared.

He came back about a year later, and it was apparent that he'd lost a lot of his previous skill. However, he remained a quick study, and started to get good again. And, just as he was getting good, he quit, and didn't come back.

I think that what was happening was that he realised he was good at something, got scared, and so quit.

The fear of success is a very real, and very difficult, thing. A lot of people don't realise how difficult it can be. They think they would dearly love to be really great at something, and that that would be good. However, being good at things marks you out as different. Very few people can play the bagpipes at all, let alone well. Few people are truly good at football, or maths, or whatever else you want to name.

So what? you might think. Being marked out for being good can't be a bad thing, can it? But the truth is that being different hurts, especially for a young man. Our culture has raised mediocity to some sort of great status, where smart people are portrayed as boring losers, and where you don't need any talent to be famous - you just need to be on reality TV and make an impression. Jade, for instance, now makes her living as a professional interviewee - she doesn't actually do anything, but just talks about how she's still famous. (To her credit, Jade doesn't claim to be clever or talented - she makes a lot of money out of her very lack of these qualities.)

I sometimes wonder if Bill ever regrets not completing his training. He could have been a really good piper, if he'd stuck at it. But, that would have required him to stand out from the crowd of his peers. Would that have been a sacrifice worth making?