You’re not that Great (but neither is anyone else)

As you all know I am a self-help book junkie so when I happened to be in my local library picking up an autobiography, I could not help but be distracted by the self-help section. I was distracted by a small light pink book that might as well have been screaming its title at me: “You’re not that Great (but neither is anyone else)” by Elan Gale. I thought now that’s a book that understands me and in general life. Gale is anti-positivity and pro-owning your shit. He promptly states in the beginning of the book that positivity is bullshit and holds you back from being  a better version of yourself. He states that people are more concerned about feeling good about themselves (being positive) then owning their emotions, most negative,  that could catapult you into being a better you.

Gale speaks bluntly and tells it as it is, “Even now you’re probably feeling a little uncomfortable because you’re used to reading self-help books that tell you how wonderful and charming and great you already are and are so complimentary that they might as well just be licking your genitals as they take your money like a prostitute” (Gale 13). Gale has a point because the self-help book industry has a lot of bullshit books that just tell you to be positive and never get to the actual how to improve your life bit. The industry is saturated with feel good reads that beat around the bush when it comes to negative emotions like resentment, jealousy, pride, etc. Gale in his book instead says that these negative emotions can act as motivators to motivate you to become a better version of yourself.

An example of this is when Gale references Michael Jordan and his feelings of not being good enough when he did not make the high school basketball team.  “Whenever I was working out and got tired and figured I ought to stop, I’d close my eyes and and see that list in the locker room without my name on it,” Jordan explained…instead of feeling good about himself, Jordan felt embarrassed and ashamed, and he USED those FEELINGS to push himself further” (Gale 133). If he had not pushed himself because of his feelings of worthlessness he may never have made it to the NBA.

I can attest to harnessing these negative feelings and using them to push me further. Most of my life I was told I was not good enough to be a journalist so I studied constantly throughout high school to get the grade point average needed to apply and ultimately get into one of Canada’s most competitive Journalism programs at Carleton University. I would eventually change my major however from Journalism to Art History and English with a minor in Psychology but I was still pushing forward to be a Arts Journalist. I became one for the school newspaper and reported frequently on events at art galleries and artist run centers. I was so good students quoted my articles in fourth year papers and I actually manged to get paid for some of my journalistic efforts as a student.

As my followers know I would be later forced to abandon my journalistic cap in order to focus on my mental health with the onset of bipolar disorder happening in my fourth and final year of school. The point is I succeeded at becoming a journalist in my own right and all those people, especially my family, were proved wrong. I’d be lying if I said it was positivity that led to this but rather a deep fire in me to prove every asshole that told me I couldn’t do it wrong.

Gale also states frequently in his book that you are not that great: “The key to getting bigger and growing up is to admit you are small. The less you know, the more you can wonder, and the more you can stop being a narcissistic shithead and start living an interesting life” (Gale 97). He claims that you can become the smartest person in the room by admitting that you don’t know anything. He says there is never a time
when you don’t have more to learn. There is always room for growth and people who think they are the greatest are arrogant assholes who do not truly want to better themselves and rather accept what they are as all they are. Acknowledging that you are not that great in the grand scheme of things is the first step to a better life. From this point on you can start to look for things to better yourself because you REALIZE you could BE and DO better.