The Tyranny of Above and Beyond

by Annabeth Leong

I can think of so many ways I grew up with the idea that unless I'm going above and beyond I'm not doing enough.

For my entire school career, anything short of an A was a failure. The A thereby possessed no particular meaning or cause for celebration. That, indeed, set a pattern for me. There was no achievement to be happy about, only ways to fall short.

When I became a writer, I read so much about polishing stories to within an inch of their lives. It felt as if I shouldn't dare to bother an editor with my efforts unless I knew I'd already gone far above and beyond. I see the good intention in this advice, but I can also tell you that it utterly paralyzed me and prevented me from getting my work out there.

I remember a lover I had early on who would get angry at me for "selfishness" if I relaxed and soaked pleasure in. In his view, I was supposed to keep my lips, tongue, and hands moving at all times, providing pleasure to him no matter what else was going on.

And later, when I started publishing erotica professionally, there was no amount of promotional effort that felt like enough. If I wasn't on every social network known to man, networking constantly, posting on blogs all over the world, then I deserved any poor sales I might have had.

I don't think I need to describe how destructive this type of thinking can get when it becomes deeply ingrained. While it's certainly a good thing to make an effort, I can't live when I'm overwhelmed by paralysis, guilt, and anxiety. When there aren't any ways to succeed, only ways to fall short, it starts to make sense to avoid trying at all.

Obviously, I haven't been going above and beyond as a writer on this blog lately. I'm appreciative that you've all stuck with me as I flail.

But this is why I'm posting today, on the weekend after missing my scheduled day.

When I can't get that A, my desire is to hide in shame. But I've learned over time that there's a lot of power, not in going above and beyond all the time, but in doing the best I can and letting people see that this is flawed but also beautiful.

So here I am. I don't have the resources at the moment to go above and beyond, but here I am, doing this because you and this writing matter to me. I'll see you in two weeks, still doing the best I can. Fingers crossed that it'll be my scheduled day next time.

SpiderMan -- #Heroism #AboveAndBeyond #Altruism

By Lisabet Sarai

Last week the world witnessed a startling feat of heroism, when Malian immigrant Mamoudou Gassama climbed four stories up the side of an apartment building to rescue a toddler dangling from a balcony.

According to the twenty-two year old young man, he reacted instinctively, scaling the building without stopping to think about the implications. Indeed, if he’d paused to consider the possible consequences, he might not have taken action. Not only did he risk injury and death, but also, because he was residing illegally in Paris, his highly visible activities were guaranteed to alert the authorities to his existence. His story ended happily—the French government (rather hypocritically, considering their general policy toward migrants) gave him immediate citizenship—but it could have had a far different conclusion.

Stories like Gassama’s always make me feel a little bit better about humanity. I wish the media did more to celebrate the everyday heroes who put aside their own best interests to help others. There are more of these people than we realize; they just express their heroism in somewhat less spectacular ways than the guy whom the tabloids have christened “Spiderman”. I’m awed, for instance, by the people who work with Doctors Without Borders, providing medical and humanitarian services in conflict zones where they are as much targets as the individuals they serve. Or for an even quieter type of heroism, consider the millions of people who devote themselves to the health and well-being of the severely disabled—not just professionals (though their day-in, day-out service is also heroic), but ordinary folks whose children, siblings or parents can’t survive without them.

I have a three-year old cousin who was born with SMA (Spinal Muscular Atrophy), a genetic neuromuscular disorder that leads to gradual paralysis and (usually) early death. His parents are my personal heroes. They’ve reorganized their lives to give little D not just the medical support he needs, but also to make his childhood as normal as they can. Last year, the whole family (D has a seven year old brother) took a trip to Disneyland, despite the fact that D is confined to a wheelchair and has to wear an oxygen mask because his lung muscles are too weak to let him breathe.

“That’s family,” you might say. “Everyone takes care of their own blood.” Aside from the fact that there are many dedicated caregivers who work with unrelated individuals, does that make the actions, the dedication, the sacrifice, worth any less? Not to me, at least.

Although sometimes it seems that society has become totally selfish and self-centered (think about the billions of dollars spent on devices to capture and “share” trivial self-portraits), altruism is a fundamental human characteristic, one that is not sufficiently acknowledged. It flows, I believe, from the unconscious knowledge that we are all connected. I don’t think it’s an accident that last week’s Spiderman comes from a traditional culture where family and community are given higher value than in individualistic Western societies. I don’t have any data, but I’d bet that instances of heroism like this are more common in more sparsely populated rural or agricultural areas, where people tend to know their neighbors, than in crowded, anonymous cities.

Superheroes are all the rage these days. Traditional comic book characters are being resurrected and reshaped for the twenty first century. From what I can see, though, these characters are more occupied with egotism and inter-personal conflicts than with truly helping the powerless. In today’s typical superhero film, the so-called heroes have no qualms about destroying vast swathes of public infrastructure in their pursuit of the so-called villains. Civilians become collateral damage in a clash of super-powered titans.

Entertaining? Maybe, but I wouldn’t label that as heroism.

Real heroes aren’t necessarily as flashy. But they’re all around us, if we look. Including when we look in the mirror.