Letter to my children: Don't Be the Best, Be the Only

“Don’t be the best, be the only.”

Thank you Kevin Kelly for that fabulous nugget. Children, he is bang on. When I stepped onto the conveyor belt of formal education, these were the cultural markers delineating success.

Straight As.

Being on a varsity team (bonus if you are the captain).

Being the lead in the play.

Being in school government.

Having the solo in the choral recital.

You spend your high school years tallying up these markers with the ultimate goal to matriculate at an elite college - hopefully Harvard (for my childhood). At which point, you will continue to rack up markers (honor student, athlete, volunteer, starting a group to save the whales, etc) with the ultimate goal to then enter a graduate program.

As Baba told me years ago, “I don’t hire anyone unless they have a Master’s degree at the minimum. Graduate work teaches you to read the footnotes. It teaches you to do primary research. It teaches you how to think.”

I would disagree with Baba if I could, but I can’t. I graduated with a degree in english from a very fancy college and I didn’t really learn how to write till graduate school.

So there is that.

I am very well aware these markers of success are family dependent. If I had not been born to a family of graduate degree holders, I would not have been pushed in that direction. You two are born to parents who both hold graduate degrees - so I am unpacking this as best as I can for you. Where is the line between parental approval (nurture) and self motivation (nature)? Aka, did I go Cambridge because Meme went to Oxford? Or did I go to Cambridge because it made my heart sing? I would argue both and - always both and.

Eventually, you graduate/hop off the conveyor belt of formal education and look around at your life - wondering what the next success marker looks like.

Unfortunately, our culture just keeps on celebrating the success of the minority not the majority. (She was top in her field! Top 40 entrepreneurs under 40! Cover of Vogue magazine 5 times! CEO of XX! Chairman of YY!)

When you are a child the failures are very clear. (She failed the grade and has to go to summer school. He failed his driving test and has to be driven around by his parents.)

Once you graduate from formal education what failure looks like get more complicated and if often tied to money. (My neighbor has a bigger house than I do. Why can’t I afford that fancy car? Oh wow, they retired at 39 and have been traveling the world.)**

I am huge fan of Matthew McConaughey’s premise in his book Greenlights. For McConaughey, every “failure” in life is merely a red light on the road. So, you pause, or you change directions, okay. As long as you stay true to your north star, your vision for your life, eventually that change will lead to a green light. This, like both and, is a nuanced way to look at the world.

Bringing nuance and complexity to the dichotomy of success vs failure is not something I really grokked till I hopped off the formal education train and took a look around at the world.

I hope in writing this, you two might sidestep judging yourself against markers of success as you join the formal education conveyor belt. I spent wasted time judging myself for not checking off certain boxes of cultural success - try to avoid that.

Which brings us back to Kelly’s quote.

“Don’t be the best, be the only.” Don’t worry about getting perfect SAT scores, becoming the best knitter in the world, affording the fanciest car.

Be the only. There is only one Bean. There is only one Dragon. No one else on this planet combines your unique set of skills with your unique set of interests.

As you grow you will try different things. See what fits. See what doesn’t fit. You will see what interests you, you will learn what makes your heart sing and your being happy.

Do that. Do what makes your heart and mind sing and your being happy. Sometimes it might look like hanging with your buddies in your varsity jackets. Sometimes it might look like staring at a tree by yourself.

I don’t know what you will choose to do that makes your heart sing. You are the only one who knows that.

Be the only.

Love, your only Momma.

*distilling Jerry Garcia, apparently.

**It feels important here to note the failures listed above are only for those of us who have resources. For those members of our society incarcerated or dispossessed I don’t know what the equivalent failures would be.