Imitator

"The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity"
Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the United States at least, Halloween is a huge holiday, at least as popular with adults as it is with children. And as far as I can tell, what everyone enjoys about Halloween perhaps more than anything else is the chance to dress up as someone else. How many of us have not felt the desire, at some time in our lives, to have been somebody else. We wish we were Susan because of her popularity, or Joe because of his luxurious vacations. We wish we were John because of his job, or Betty because of her well-behaved children. We wish we were Michael because of his fame.

We don't really want to be John; we simply want his job. But we often don't see it that way. In our minds, we blur the distinction between John and his job. We zoom in on some aspect of another person life and wish we had it, but we conveniently forget that it is only one aspect of their life. Maybe John does have a fantastic job but he might also have a terrible marriage, or a mentally ill brother.

We don't really want to be someone else and deep in our hearts we know that. We want to have our own lives, perhaps with a job like John's as part of it. "The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity". The biggest problem with wanting to be like someone else is that you have restricted your possibilities. You can only have a job like his. But maybe his job isn't right for your personality, or entails more hours than you are willing to work, or doesn't make as much money as you could make if you did something more suited to your unique talents.

There are probably many people you look up to and admire. But if you were exactly like them you would never be able to reach your full potential. You would not be growing through learning about yourself because you would be too busy focusing on them. You would not be exersising and growing your own unique talents, but theirs. You would not be contributing to the world what you alone were meant to contribute. You simply would not be as successful as you could be.