Apples to Oranges

During July and August the bayside beaches of Cape Cod are prime destinations at sunset. It’s the best show in town and tourists and locals alike flock to it.

The other day, as sunset was approaching, I decided I would go to Sunken Meadow, the bay beach closest to my house. As I pulled into the packed parking lot and saw groups of visitors socializing, wine glasses in hand, my inner negativity was stirred up and I said to myself “What are all these people doing on my beach?” I had come to view a natural wonder, not watch them party.

I decided to go further up the road to the Wellfleet Bay Audubon Sanctuary and walk one of the trails out to the bay. To my delight, there was only one other car in the parking lot, and I didn’t see another soul as I passed Try Island and followed the boardwalk out to the tidal flats. I was able to watch the crimson sun slip into the glimmering teal water in perfect solitude.

But when an encounter with someone causes you to slide into self-deprecation, try to remember you’re comparing your inside to their outside, and that they may very well be doing the same thing with you!

A few days later, I was talking to another year-round resident about the trials and tribulations of living in a place where people love to vacation. This woman had worked for many years at the Audubon, and she startled me by saying, “When I was there, the summers were absolutely crazy—so many people, barely time to catch your breath.”

Clearly, what for me is a sanctuary has been for her a source of stress.

As I reflected on the difference in our views, it struck me that she was looking at the situation as an insider, someone who had worked at the Audubon from 9 to 5 every day, while I was an outsider, an after hours visitor, in a sense, a “tourist.”

It reminded me of how we do the same thing in looking at other people. Because we tend to evaluate them against the ever-present (and often relentless) measurements we take of ourselves based on parental messages, past mistakes or fear of failure, we often see them as brighter, more capable and secure than we are. Unconsciously we tip the scale in their favor.

Just yesterday a client, who runs a respected nonprofit agency almost singlehandedly, told me about going to meet with the head of a community agency to ask for help. She said she felt inferior the moment she stepped into the building because it was so much ritzier than her own, and she went on to say that she felt she had blown the opportunity. I could see that what she was doing was measuring herself against externals and minimizing her own accomplishments. I said it sounded to me as if she had made a good beginning, and I made some suggestions about how she might build on it.

I once visited a very affluent woman who lived in an elegant apartment in mid-town Manhattan. When I gave her a compliment on the artwork on her walls, she brushed it aside and told me about going to give a private yoga lesson at a Fifth Avenue penthouse. She stepped off the elevator and came face-to-face with Picasso’s Boy Leading a Horse—the penthouse belonged to William S Paley, CEO of CBS.

A few years later, I had the opportunity to go to another swanky New York address to help a Vice-President of a Fortune 500 company with his work-search. I was so intimidated that I went out and bought a whole new outfit to give me confidence.

Yet even in my new clothes, I felt my awkwardness from the beginning. I was sure that even the doorman saw right through me and knew that I didn’t belong there.

The elevator operator asked me what floor I wanted and, as I’d practiced, I said casually, “Forty-four, please.” On the way up I reminded myself that I was there because the executive needed something I was good at, and that our project would be a collaboration. We arrived and as I stepped out of the elevator, the operator observed, “The penthouse—you must be important.”

I turned to him with a smile and said, “We all are.”

Awe, respect, even a good dose of humility, are all appropriate when you stand before someone else with great talent, character, attractiveness, or wealth.

But when an encounter with someone causes you to slide into self-deprecation, try to remember you’re comparing your inside to their outside, and that they may very well be doing the same thing with you!