Appropriately enough, perhaps, I have received little to no feedback regards my proposed condition "Evil Genius Syndrome". It is my personal belief that it is a thing, and quite a large thing at that. Seeing as the whole strand kicked off with regards to the much overstated problem of "Impostor Syndrome", where a limited number of successful people feel that they might not deserve the success they enjoy, I figured the reverse syndrome must be far more prevalent.
My reasoning is based on simple maths. Massively successful people are rare, people more talented than their success would imply must be numerous, stupidly numerous. There must be thousands of us.
But Evil Geniuses are not joiners, or talkers, apparently. One of the keys to success, it would appear, is that one successful person admits to feeling like a bit of a fraud all the others that do pipe up because their self-esteem can take the hit. When someone says: "Hey, I'm feeling a bit undervalued here, anyone else feel the same?" people don't want to appear smug or bitter or whatever.
I think that's important. When I say that Evil Geniuses have not enjoyed levels of success one might expect I think that implies they're big losers hungry for power. I mean, that's what an Evil Genius is, right?
But just as Impostors are not actually impersonating anyone so evil geniuses are not necessarily unhappy with their life lot. This all comes down to success at the thing that gives you money to put in the bank. So many Evil Geniuses have probably made trade-offs to be happier in their life than the continual pursuit of money. Of course, you get to a certain level of success and you don't need to worry too much about the future (maybe a bit, maybe get an accountant, and a financial adviser). But I think there's a lot of clear blue sky between working hard enough to get by and enjoy the non-work parts of your life and being dedicated to work, working hard and getting to a point where you could feel like an impostor early on.
It's a telling thing, for example, that a lot of celebrities have impostor syndrome. I think if you finally got where you were going after 20 years hard work etc. you would feel like you'd earned your enjoyed success. Then again, these things are not rational. Also, maybe if you've only been on a career path less than a decade you're not that surprised you aren't further ahead with it than you are.
So, maybe I made a slip up. Maybe there's another reversal in this syndrome. Impostor Syndrome is likely to be felt by people who think they've come way too far, way too fast. Once you're there further success is likely to just make things worse.
On the other hand being an Evil Genius is far more likely to be something that sneaks up on you. I have been in one career track now for about fifteen years. It's only very recently that I have become surprised I haven't done as well as I thought I might. And is the result of that fear and anxiety? In the case of the impostor, certainly. In the case of the Evil Genius it will range from puzzlement and disappointment right up to anger. And I guess the angrier you are the more you might be mistaken.
The point is that the true Evil Genius Syndrome is a bit of confusion and feeling lost. You genuinely think, "I am capable of more than this, so why has that capability not materialised?" I think the companion feeling to the impostor emotional state of "I don't believe all this success is because of my wisdom in action and decision" is the evil geniuses question: "Am I doing something wrong?"
Am I choosing the wrong choices? Have I displayed poor judgement? Am I saying the wrong things? These are the concerns of the Evil Genius.
I am, in fact, asking those questions right now, about this strand of discussion. I think it's time for the Evil Genius to return to his lab. For the time being it's arrivederci Evil Genius Mondays, we hardly knew ye. Next Monday... probably more Starfall anticipation articles, look out, we could be looking at Celtic Mythology Monday!
Icon Credits
Icons made by Eucalyp, Freepik from www.flaticon.com is licensed by CC 3.0 BY
No comments:
Post a Comment