I see this among my former students, and I see it over and over again in people in their mid-twenties. The young person without a conscious purpose graduates and hopes by piling success upon success he can fill the void within. He becomes what the writer Matias Dalsgaard calls: The Insecure Overachiever: “Such a person, ” Dalsgaard writes, “must have no stable or solid foundation to build upon, and yet nonetheless tries to build his way out of his problem. It is an impossible situation. You can’t compensate for having a foundation made of quicksand by building a new story on top of it. But this person takes no notice and hopes that the problem down in the foundations won’t be found out if only the construction work keeps going.”我在我教过的学生身上看到过这种缺失,二十几岁的年轻人身上也屡见不鲜。没有明确目标的年轻人毕业了,指望用一次次堆砌成功来填补内心的空洞。他们成了 Matias Dalsgaard所谓的“焦虑的佼佼者”。(注:Matias是麦肯锡前雇员,指出在初入职场的年轻人身上特别明显地存在一种焦虑状态,后来他在书详述了这种焦虑状态的五个特点)Dalsgaard 写道:“这种人一定没有稳固的处事根基,但依然试图让自己从所遇的问题中解脱出来。这等于陷自己于不可能之境。你无法通过建造新的楼层,来弥补像流沙一般的地基。但这种人会继续无视这点,一心希望只要修建工作继续下去,地基的问题就不会被发现。”
很感同身受, 虽然我不是佼佼者