Economic boom times are like
a cheap and reliable source of cocaine to people who are addicted
to success. Mental health professionals are very familiar with a
certain kind of individual who moves frantically from one success
to the next because they're afraid that if they stop, some unnamed
demon will catch up to them. Inevitably, however, they stumble,
and then they have to face their fears. When our current economic
euphoria dissipates, many people may find a demon or two staring
them in the face.
People like this act confident,
intuitive, and energetic. We might never suspect that they are really
just showing off to convince themselves they're not scared. In their
relationships, they can use considerable charm and sensitivity to
engage people quickly and intensely. But they outsmart themselves.
By presenting to others only a "false self" — confident,
witty, outgoing — they isolate the "true self" — weak,
frightened, a failure — that they believe themselves to be.
They secretly believe that they are fooling everyone, that if others
knew them like they know themselves, no one could care about them.
They use their own skills to put themselves in a self-defeating
cycle from which there is no escape.
Today's culture doesn't give
us much help. We define success in material, competitive terms.
We don't have aspirations that challenge us to grow emotionally
— to give back to our community, to make a marriage work, to
be a source of strength in an extended family. Without ideals like
these, we lack a sense of resilience, a core of aspirations, a feeling
of vitality — but we don't seek these missing parts directly.
The career track teaches us that we have to act confident, cocky,
and tough. We learn how to fool people, but we don't know how to
get our own needs met. A career, a cause, an exercise regime, can
become an obsession.
When something happens to make
these people stop running, after an initial period of depression
and confusion they often realize they are better off. They learn
how to tolerate being alone, how to cultivate real relationships,
how to separate the truly important from the merely urgent. Far-sighted
employers, who don't want to burn out a stellar performer but instead
view their employees as a long-term investment, can help prevent
the fall by treating their staff with dignity and by rewarding vision
and dedication in addition to productivity.