I don't want to be exceptional (and why you don't either)

Trying to be exceptional is not all it's cracked up to be.

Photo by Aidi Tanndy.

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Do you remember when you first learned that you “needed” to be exceptional? Perfect? One of one? I first learned this idea from school. All sorts of awards and accolades were dolled out for being able to best the rest.

Perfect attendance.

No demerits for misbehavior.

Honor roll.

The dean’s list.

The list goes on and on and on.

I have no background knowledge about any of their origins, but I’m going to take a wild guess and just say that they were all rooted in America’s obsession with being exceptional, the best, the only. And the need to control us. This pressure only gets amplified when you’re a “smart Black woman.”

Back then, as an impressionable child, I of course believed that what I was being told was gospel, and I strived to be the best at everything I did, but particularly when it came to being a student. As a result, there was a great deal of fear of failure instilled in me. I could not fail. This fear was so great that despite the death of my father at the beginning of 6th grade (which in my home state of NC, was the beginning of middle school—a very critical point of transition), I ended the year making the AB honor roll. Because of my stellar performance, no one even detected that I was deeply sad and growing dissatisfied with myself and the world I lived in (and there were signs y’all: I got into a fight on the bus and had numerous verbal altercations with classmates that led to in-school suspensions).

Truth be told, being an exceptional student/learner is how I coped with what has been thus far the most devastating thing to happen to me. In high school, I led and joined club after club. Was student body president. Took almost all the Advanced Placement classes my school offered, online classes, and enrolled in community college classes paid for by my school. I was number 2 in my high school class, meaning I had the second highest grade point average among all the people I graduated with. My senior year, I was accepted by and ultimately went on to attend the flagship university in the state, which is one of the top public universities in the country. By all accounts, I was exceptional and thriving.

But during my first year of college, I began to crack.

By the end of the year, I was ready to cut my losses and drop out. I told myself that instead of pursuing law school, I could just go to community college (which at the time was viewed as something “slackers”/”average” people did—thankfully, community college has since become viewed as a perfectly good and legitimate post-high school pathway) and become a paralegal. My desire to drop out was driven by depression, feeling uncertain about how I was going to continue affording school (I didn’t truly understand how financial aid worked including my scholarships), and a suffocating feeling of never feeling good enough.

Well, I didn’t drop out. I didn’t trade my 4-year college for community college. I didn’t become a paralegal and I didn’t become a lawyer. I did graduate, but by the time that came around I was burnt out and uncertain about my future.

By the time I graduated, I had slowly begun to question whether I truly needed to be exceptional. I started recognizing the flaws of trying to be one of one. I started reflecting on this after having had a professor, whom I deeply respected and admired, try to pressure me into a PhD program right after undergrad. I knew deep in my bones that if I followed the dream she had for me, that pursuit might of just killed me— spiritually, first; physically, later.

I was sick and tired of the mental drain that came with being excellent. Proving that I could comprehend some of the most complex literature and write some of the most persuasive research papers. To what end and what purpose was doing any of that necessary? I wanted to be free from having to perform and prove myself. I simply wanted to just be.

Simply, existing and being who we are is enough.

This is not something you will hear often, and if you’ve never been told this, you heard it from me first. I don’t care about Black excellence and as far as I’m concerned, Black girl magic is dead. I know that there is good intent behind each of those, but I truly believe that so many Black women are being crushed by the weight these narratives impose on our backs. And more disturbingly, striving to be exceptional makes us sick.

Stress.

Insomnia.

Stomach aches.

Headaches.

Neck rashes.

Again, the list goes on and on and on.

In a world that is fickle and never satisfied, trying to be exceptional is a futile endeavor. The goal post is always moving, especially for Black women. Just as soon as we think we’ve proven that we are THAT girl, society says “you must do these hundred other things to keep that title.”

Enough is enough, though. We are not machines. And if we were, let us remember that machines break.

I would be remiss to not tell you that actively opting out this rat race/hamster wheel of a shit show is counterculture and will not necessarily be easy. You may also upset some people who feel like you’re too smart or too *insert whatever thing they value* to not try to not do the things that people believe you should do. You will have to become more comfortable with disappointing people, being disliked, etc. But your life literally depends on learning to care less about pleasing others or trying to be the best in everything you do.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with wanting to be good at the things that matter to you. There is something terribly wrong when so much of your worth is tied up into the accolades you do or don’t get. Or if you don’t get first place or come out on top, you feel like a complete failure.

There is something terribly wrong when we wear forgoing our own needs like a badge of honor. But trust me on this one. There is no glory in being depleted. There is no glory in being so drained that you cannot show up for yourself.

There is no glory in trying to be exceptional.

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