Be Impressed

Compliments can be likely

I overheard a conversation at lunch. Someone was talking about how in the past, they’d blogged under a different pseudonym than their current one, and had gotten a good reception, up to and including job opportunities. They once again are doing very well under a new pseudonym. Impressive stuff.

Or last night, after midnight, I was in a getting-to-know-you circle of four people. One person had gone to Yale. Another, Oxford. A third, Stanford, and this person had also dated a celebrity. Remarkable!

I recall a stanza from Jamie Paige:

little envy
your chartreuse color compliments me nicely
but compliments ain't likely
does it scare you? to be
everything you can be
never surely complete
don't i know it

After all, I have put plenty of writing on the internet, but none of it has won me fame and fortune, or the attention of tens of thousands. And while I applied for Ivy League schools at the advice of the Princeton Review lady who visited my high school, I didn’t get into them.

How strong the urge now, to defend myself. To make excuses. Or failing that, to show that I don’t care, that I am rich in some other, different currency. And what a shame that urge is! Not only because it is painful and pointless, but because it hides another, better reaction, hiding in plain sight.

I should simply be impressed.

A Good Impression

Being impressed is the mirror image of envy. Envy notices that someone else has something that I don’t, and experiences that fact as pain. Being impressed notices the same reality, and experiences it as pleasure. Seeing someone juggle many balls is impressive to me because I can’t do it, but being impressed is a warm feeling, a sense that it’s wonderful, innately, that someone can do such a thing.

Being impressed mirrors envy in a second way. When I’m envious, I am quite focused on myself. My inner monologue fixates on why I don’t have some desirable property, and I barely notice the envied person other than as an effigy of that trait. When I’m impressed by someone, on the other hand, I am closely attuned to details about them; to be impressed is to be interested, focused, trying to understand a positive example rather than a negative space.

Being impressed often inspires no particular action; I’m impressed watching a skilled juggler, but am not motivated to gain that skill. But sometimes being impressed is galvanizing. I was impressed by a girl’s fashion sense at a conference, and it made me want to pay closer attention to the clothes I wore and how their colors went together. I also read a book she recommended.

Best of all, being impressed is a gateway to sincere praise. People love compliments. One of the saddest things about envy is the arms race it can kick off, where everyone fluffs up like a pufferfish, fortifying their egos against each other’s achievements. Much better to relax.

Wow! You really did that? It sounds hard. What was it like?

How often do you think the impressive person hears that? If they’re extremely impressive, maybe enough to bore them.

But I doubt it.