It was week 5 or 6 of Semester 1. 7/10 marks on Canvas. My heart sank, I was aghast. What do you mean, I put so much effort into my essay outline, only to get the mean score. That first sting of disappointment at university left a bitter aftertaste that lingered far longer than expected, and with it came the revelation that perhaps I wasn’t as good as I thought.
Coming from the Integrated Programme with a relatively small batch size of 450, I didn’t have to “fight for my life” to get certain opportunities that I wanted, I could hold multiple leadership roles at once and my grades were constantly above average. Yet when this medium fish from a tiny pond was thrown into the vast NUS ocean teeming with whales, the foundation I had built my self-esteem upon—being better than others—started crumbling. This sense of inferiority and insignificance was further exacerbated in Tembusu, where almost everyone excelled in their previous institutions. It’s not uncommon to see an individual from a competitive major on the Dean’s List, excelling in Sports and Arts, having a NUS or government scholarship AND internship/NOC experiences all at the same time. This Home of Possibilities was also home to people of a certain calibre – ambitious, driven, but still incredibly humble.
Social psychology has a term for this: upward comparison, where we compare ourselves to someone we perceive to be “better” than us. Perhaps our competitive society has insidiously instilled a scarcity mindset in us, whereby we’re always competing for a limited number of spots in top schools, a limited number of scholarships, a limited number of internship and job opportunities, such that we’re wired to think that if someone else has a resource, there would be fewer resources available for us left, which then translates into immense pressure to stand out from the rest. Yet there’s a fine line between feeling inspired and feeling inferior, fearful that what you want will be taken by those who are more competent, and I struggled to find the perfect balance.
Surprisingly enough, an interview at the end of 2024 gave me a new perspective. The interviewer asked, “Tell me something about yourself that is not on your resume.” I was stunned, lost for words, while the gears in my brain whirred into overdrive. Think! Say something! My aspirations (being a clinical psychologist) were reflected in the internships I had done, my side hustle (tutoring) was on my resume, and even my hobbies—crocheting and volunteering—were listed in black and white, in the form of my crochet business and myriad of volunteering experiences. I had taken so much pride in how I had 3 internships before the age of 20, how I was actively working towards my goals, how I was paying off my school fees without financial support from my parents, that I had never paused to ponder that beyond all these, who am I really and what matters the most to me?
An awkward silence followed, after which I finally said my long-term goal was not just to become a clinical psychologist, but to provide accessible therapy services for those who were unable to afford it. I went on to explain the story behind this dream, that mental health conditions broke the people I loved the most, yet they lacked the means to seek professional help. Watching them suffer pulled me under a relentless tide of helplessness, guilt, and anger at my own inability to ease their pain, and broke my 16-year-old self. (note: I passed the interview!)
Reflecting on this, I’ve gradually learnt that we all have our own dreams, strengths and stories. There is more to us and our worth than our grades or achievements. During my teaching stint at a Special Education School, I had a student who couldn’t read or write English due to his intellectual disability. Yet he was meticulous at cleaning the classroom (more skilled than me) and was a caring older brother (he would bring and fetch his brother from school everyday without fail), and a helpful and cheerful classmate. I recall thinking to myself that we shouldn’t simply judge or evaluate someone’s character based on mere academic achievements or intellect, because then we’ll miss out on their hidden strengths and innate personality traits.
My friends have joked about how instead of doomscrolling Instagram or TikTok, I doomscroll LinkedIn (proud to announce that I no longer do so now!). Yet at some point I realised that I was losing sight of my long-term goal, that instead of focusing on how to better prepare myself for a career in clinical psychology, I was hyperfixated on being “above average”, going after opportunities and scholarships simply because it boosted my ego and made me “stand out”. After this profound revelation, I started to consciously remind myself to never lose my heart and passion to serve others, the initial spark that got me started in my dream. In Chinese, there is a phrase called 不忘初心1—in the years to come, during and after university, I hope I don’t get too caught up in the rat race to the point where I lose myself and forget what I truly desire.
Lastly, this article doesn’t provide concrete solutions to self-comparison. I’m still figuring things out and adjusting my views and expectations along the way. I’ve been reminding myself that life isn’t always a competition, it’s more than a list of accolades or the fight to be the crème de la crème. There is a deep sense of fulfilment and joy in doing things that set our soul on fire, in serving a cause beyond ourselves, in being a filial daughter/son, a supportive friend and a loving partner. Perhaps our worth lies not in being better than others, but in staying true to our own values. At the end of the day, it’s not about what you have on your LinkedIn or the numbers on your academic transcript. The things that are not written, are the ones that matter the most.
About the Author
Emily is a Year 2 Psychology student who enjoys reading, crocheting and cafe-hopping in her free time. She picked up running in university after running around UTown at night, but constantly finds herself injured from her runs.
- Meaning: Never forget why you started ↩︎