I think I've written about the magical tennis shoes here, but I'm not finding the post at the moment. When I do I'll link to it.
The TL;DR is that I ended up buying a pair of tennis shoes that was extremely in style, which made me darn nervous because I truly did not want to look like one of the seventh graders I was working with at the time. It turned out that instead of the kids thinking I was trying too hard to be cool (with the exception of exactly one sixth grader) they thought I WAS cool-- and the more trend-aware the kid was, the stronger the impression was. This was pretty weird for me, but nice; the positive feedback from kids was nice, but the truly amazing effect was that the same kids who on principle tended to resist any and all orders, suggestions, commands, etc. would get twirling spirals in their eyes and say "Yes," when I asked them to do things, as long as I was wearing The Magical Shoes. I found these effects to be both hilarious and worrisome.
It was worrisome because I know darn good and well that letting any of your sense of self-worth rest on the approval of seventh-graders is a terrible idea, even if you're a seventh grader, but especially if you're a grownup. Luckily, I was able to avoid that fate at that time.
However, recently I was in a group discussion about a video featuring a woman who had been an elite synchronized swimmer, whose perfectionism had prevented her from enjoying the successes she had before she became too ill to compete. All of a sudden I made the connection: it does feel good to get compliments from normally hostile seventh graders; it also feels good to get awards and prizes from the sports world (or the academic world, or the musical world, or the world in general); but letting go of your precious sense of self-worth in exchange for those things is a terrible idea.
I haven't been quite as successful at keeping my sense of self-worth safe from these other traps, but at least now I have a metaphor to remind me why I should keep trying. :)
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