[jennasys]

I agree with the premise here in general. There have certainly been times when I've wanted to accomplish something, but then I see someone else being exceptional at that task and I stop wanting to do it because I know I'll never be that good at it.

When you see someone doing something you do or want to do, and they are exceptional at it, it either becomes inspirational or discouraging based on just how extraordinary it is and how emotionally attached you are to the subject. If you are emotionally committed to it, seeing someone else doing it well will likely be inspirational. If not, you're more likely to give up before you even start.

[hinkley]

For some people this starts in childhood. People see a sibling excelling in an area and decide to cultivate other traits instead, so they are not living in their shadow.

I discovered at a young age that I am a parrot - that I find it fairly straightforward to repeat back complex sound patterns to people. There are a couple families of language in SE Asia and Africa that trip me up, but other than that my coordination is unusual. It made parts of music and foreign language classes a non-event, which made more time to perfect other parts.

What I didn't know until much later is that my brother also has this trait, but he got tired of being "hinkley's younger brother", and he completely burnt out on music (although that was due to pressure from our parents) and foreign language by high school. I had a sense of this by the time he was picking a foreign language in HS, and I gently encouraged him to try a different language. He didn't. Our teacher always found the parrot trait highly fascinating, to the point of bringing it up in class. It turned out this had only happened a couple times in his career and here were two brothers back to back. I kind of laughed it off, while my brother found it pretty cringe-worthy and he eventually dropped the class.

[nonbirithm]

> If you are emotionally committed to it, seeing someone else doing it well will likely be inspirational. If not, you're more likely to give up before you even start.

Complete opposite for me. The things I get discouraged at doing because there is already an extraordinary talent pool are the ones I keep saying are the most interesting to me. To me, those things are too important to me to get wrong.

As a result I shut myself off from most books that are fiction, because regardless of what the content is, if I find the style of writing or content too engaging, it will plunge me into abject misery. So much so that sometimes I just can't being myself to do anything else for the day. Knowing myself, I figure that getting away with working on things that are not truly what I believe I exist on this Earth to do, but am already competent enough at this point in my life (programming) is a more productive use of my time if it means I don't catastophize at every turn. So in a sense I'm just locking myself into my current skillset in a vain attempt at self-preservation.

Statements like "just do it" have become dogma to me at this point and I seem to just shut off my mind at amy mention of them. I can't seem to legitimately enjoy doing anything unless I'm being productive and my expectations match up with reality, and you can't realistically expect to achieve this if you haven't already yet put years into a hobby.

Being as good as someone else isn't even what I wanted, it's merely being recognized at all as a somebody who does X. I don't get this recognition from anyone I know, so it feels like there is nothing at all to carry you forward except your shitty art and a vague notion that you'll eventually improve in two years, and it is the most empty feeling imaginable. There are a lot of unique ideas I carry, which none of the artists I know have ever had, but it still takes enough competence to depict those ideas according to a set standard.

[hrnnnnnn]

What can help here is to understand that you'll never be able to do it exactly like the person you're comparing yourself to because you are not them.

Conversely, no one else will be able to do it exactly like you. So figure out what it is about how you do it that's uniquely you and try to develop that.

[hinkley]

Even in a professional setting, it's important to remember this and not give up.

Even a person with outsize presence in your field, they can't be everywhere at once. So their rates climb and climb and the size of their projects increases to try accomplish more in the time available. They also literally don't have time for people arguing with their vision.

There are a lot of people that could never be their customers, but could easily be yours, and nobody's perfect. Trying to get skilled at things they overlook will make you your own person.