Hello!
This will be a different sort of post today. I’m going to be talking about the philosophical concept of achievements — specifically, how desert plays into them.
I really struggled with the vision of this post, because initially I wanted to make it about a mindset change that I made for myself to combat imposter syndrome. However, I worry it would sound like those weird, self-help, “the lion doesn’t blah blah” posts on Facebook.
Then, I wanted it to be a literature review of John Rawls’ conception of desert - which has a lot to do with what I’m talking about. I worry this would be too dry and inapplicable.
I’m aiming for something in between. I’m first going to discuss my view on why we care about achievements. Then I’m going to try and lump in colloquial views on desert, and why I ultimately think they result in things like imposter syndrome. Then, as always, I’ll talk about it in relation to my climbing and my personal experience with imposter syndrome, and desert. There will be a bit of philosophical spice (though being real, philosophy is about as spicy as mayo), but it should be something everyone can digest quite well!
Let’s begin!
The Nature of Our Achievements
I’m mainly interested in talking about positive versions of desert, meaning in what ways do X people deserve Y achievement. This is contrasted with negative versions of desert, where X people deserve Y punishment.
I think it’s important to first define what I believe achievements actually are before jumping into other things.
I believe most achievements fall into two categories:
Achievements where the process is the achievement in itself (process-oriented)
Achievements where the product is the achievement (product-oriented)
The more intuitive example is the product-oriented achievement. For example, if one managed to cure cancer or end world hunger, clearly the achievement is the end result, or the product. As long as something wildly unethical isn’t happening, nobody cares how these feats were done.
Process-oriented achievements are a fair bit different. I’m defining them as an achievement where it has to be done in a certain way to be impressive. If somebody got a promotion, it is a much greater achievement if it was due to their hard work rather than other means.
Most achievements fall somewhere in between these two, but the main thing I’m trying to convey is that we clearly care more about how some achievements are completed as opposed to others. Usually, most achievements culminate into something (winning a competition, getting good grades, performing a great athletic achievement, breaking a world record). However, it wouldn’t be an achievement if somebody cheated to win the competition, or cheated to get good grades.
Another thing to note is that achievements, ones which are usually more process oriented, are different for the individual. When I walk and dress myself in the morning to get ready for my day, this is not an achievement. However, for somebody who suffers from depression, or somebody recovering from a debilitating injury, these would be large achievements. My intuition is that this view is fairly common, you would be quite a heartless individual to think otherwise.
What do I mean by desert?
Now that I’ve covered my bases, it’s time to talk about desert.
It’s actually very difficult to figure out what people mean when somebody talks about deserving something. Philosophy defines it as the in-virtue of relation, which is fairly confusing. Effectively, it means someone deserves something because they possess certain qualities. So:
A student possess the quality of being hard working, making them deserving of good grades
A person possess the quality of having had killed somebody, making them deserving of prison
But what exactly is happening to have these relations? Most people don’t believe in actual concepts of karma, where being virtuous releases good karma, and being vicious results in bad karma.
If you think about the raw causation chain, in order to have good grades you need to fill out some sheets of paper in a specific way. In order to do that, you don’t really have to be hard working, someone insanely lucky or naturally smart could do the same thing. Yet, I think most people would consider the hard-worker more deserving.
It seems like we’re talking about a normative issue, meaning these things are derived from social norms. We want hard-workingness to result in an achievement because we want those who are hard working to feel encouraged. We want those who are not presently hard working to be more hard working, so we give them subpar grades. It’s also useful to designate those who are hard-working with certain trackable things. If somebody has a 4.0 GPA, it tells us more information about them.
Consider the world champion of a sport, say the fastest at the 100m. It is an achievement to be the fastest at the 100m, but it’s only a title because we have an inclination to know who the fastest person is. The title has normative use, meaning it’s there because we, maybe as society, maybe as individuals, want to know something.
Now consider whether the world’s fastest at the 100m used PED’s (performance enhancing drugs) or not. In the case in which he used PED’s, he would clearly be less deserving. You could make the distinction that if he used PED’s, he would be lacking other good qualities, such as being hard working.
But I even think, all qualities equal, in the case where he did use PED’s, people would still consider his achievement less deserving. This is because we want to discourage PED use in our athletes, and we want to encourage other qualities.
The point I’m trying to make is that if desert is normative in the way that I think it is, it’s almost exclusively socially constructed by encouraging the presence of certain qualities. However, the upshot is that very rarely do the people seeking deserving achievements decide what those qualities are, and more importantly what qualities are deserving. Social consensus decides those qualities.
Imposter Syndrome
To take a break from the technical mumbo jumbo, I’d like to talk about imposter syndrome.
There’s not a great consensus psychological definition, but I’d maybe consider it the feeling that one does not deserve the position you’re in/the achievements you’ve accomplished. There’s an inner fraudulence waiting to be exposed, it is only luck that has kept you in the positions that you are. You are undeserving of your achievements.
I, like many of my peers, have struggled with imposter syndrome for most of my life. When discussing it with others, I’ve always heard the narrative was the problem with comparison. Something about comparison being the thief of joy. Or that unfavorable comparison is something people just shouldn’t do.
After thinking about this thoroughly, I can only conclude that maybe these people have never been excellent at anything in their lives. Or, perhaps more charitably, they learn to do things well in a far different way than I do.
I know this sounds harsh, but I cannot understand how somebody can learn to be good at something without comparing yourself to people who do it better than you do.
Most of the things I’m proficient at — and some of the few things I’ve been truly excellent at — have been exclusively built up by watching and observing people who have been better than me. This level of comparison is inevitable in order to learn tactics and traits of the excellence around you. Even if you focus on the positive aspects, by the law of contrast you are consistently bringing attention to skills that you lack.
I concede this may be an experience unique to myself, but I know of a few other people who do learn in a similar type of way, and it inevitably draws this sort of comparison to their mind.
Although there’s a certain amount of rationalizing one can do to get out of unhealthy comparison, there’s something rancorous about watching someone do something you feel like you ought to be capable of as well. On my worst days, I couldn’t let myself enjoy the act of doing something I enjoy. Somehow enjoying the process was a result of the proficiency I thought I had, but now lack in the face of somebody better.
I accept this view certainly falls under the category of trying to rationalize my way out of an issue potentially more adeptly handled via other means. Over rationalizing can be harmful, but it’s also important to me that I think about my problems! My view on abandoning desert is an addition to that scheme.
Abandoning Desert.
My most recent bout of imposter syndrome (that I’m willing to share) came about after accomplishing a big climbing goal of mine. This involved climbing my first 8A/V11, which was a large accomplishment that took a lot of time and effort. I wrote about it here as my first post.
I had this feeling that I skipped some steps in the process. There are many people who have not accomplished climbing V11, yet I believe are much better than me. I felt pressure to live up to expectations of someone who had climbed X number. When I did not live up to those expectations sometimes, I felt as if I did not deserve my prior achievement.
Upon reflecting, I had a strange thought - I never chose to deserve this accolade, it’s just an unfortunate brute fact that I have it.
What I mean by this, is that when we set out to accomplish an achievement:
We set out to accomplish it in the right sort of way (process-oriented)
We set out to accomplish it in the easiest way possible (product-oriented)
In this right sort of way, we attempt to attain qualities we do not have. But these qualities are usually necessary to accomplish the goal, not deserving qualities of the goal. To climb V11, I had to get stronger and better, so I did.
In this easiest way possible, we attempt to find the path of least resistance, often the path that is easiest to motivate. To climb V11, I chose the one that I felt I could do, and the one that excited me most.
In this process, when did I choose to have the deserving qualities of a V11 climber?
You could maybe argue that doing the achievement in the right sort of way involves having the deserving qualities. I suppose this is true, there are certainly restrictions to the way I could have accomplished something. But is there a wrong way to climb V11? Is there a wrong way to get a promotion or to get good grades?
Well maybe there is, you could cheat to get good grades and have an affair with your boss to get a promotion. To that I say, can it still be called imposter syndrome if you are the imposter? When one cheats to get good grades, we don’t say that was an easier or more efficient method, we say you’ve done something else.
If I rounded the back of Super Botslayer, brought a ladder, scaled up to see the sunset and said I climbed V11, this clearly isn’t the same thing as what I did in reality! Likewise, if you cheated to be in a social position, you get a funny asterisk next whatever it is you’ve accomplished.
If you’ve already accomplished something in what you deem to be the right sort of way and in the easiest possible way, what more can you do after the fact? Go back in time and do it in a way that makes it more deserving? Doing it with qualities normatively imposed onto you, just so the masses can shove you into a box?
Your achievements are your own. You know exactly the qualities you lacked, and then had to obtain to accomplish it. Whether those are deserving qualities is something you never decided, it’s something socially imposed onto you for the sake of something else. Something else that had nothing to do with the goal you set out for.
When I say ‘abandon desert’, I do not mean desert does not exist. Even though desert is largely socially constructed, that doesn’t mean I’m advocating a nihilistic view.
What I mean by abandon desert is that choosing to care about deserving your achievements is as optional as choosing the deserving qualities for those achievements. You chose neither, and it’s okay if you don’t care about either.
It’s already difficult enough to know what qualities are necessary to accomplish an achievement. We’d achieve fewer of our goals if we constantly worried about whether we deserved them after the fact.
Conclusion
Tried for something different. I hope this was vaguely helpful.
I understand that most people cannot think themselves out of conditions like imposter syndrome, there’s more going on in the brain chemistry than a rogue Substack post can fix. Go to therapy!
Still, I still wanted to share an experience I had that really helped me out and perhaps incorporate some more digestible philosophy into it.
The word desert just sounds funny now.
Desserts, deserts, deserving deserts. Maybe even deserting desserts.
Thanks for reading!