Why Superman Is a Terrible Role Model

I don’t know if you know this about me, but I’m pretty incredible. I can do more work than you can, handle more stress than you can, juggle more responsibilities than you can, make a better soufflé, host a better party, negotiate a better business deal, tie my shoes more effectively…

At least, that’s what we tell ourselves. We pride ourselves on being masters of multitasking, of cultivating the kind of superhuman perfection that will make our lives the envy of our Facebook friends. To hear the way we sell ourselves, all of us are incredible workers, devoted spouses, attentive parents, seasoned travelers, creative entrepreneurs, competitive athletes, and super hot.

Unfortunately, it’s simply not true. None of us are all of these things, and at our core we all know that. There’s a reason that studies have shown a correlation between the amount of time we spend on social media and our own happiness. The more we look at how perfect everyone else’s life seems to be, the more we think we’re falling short.

So instead of pretending to be perfect and getting frustrated whenever we fail to fool ourselves into believing it, let’s consider the upside of accepting our own limitations:

You’ll Be Happier

You’re welcome to stress yourself to an early death by concentrating on how bad you are at doing everything perfectly. Or you could let some things go and, you know, do the opposite of that.

You’ll Be More Productive

All of us spend a disproportionate amount of time trying to accomplish things that never seem to want to work the way we want them to – home improvement projects, fading relationships with old friends, landing that extra account. Some of those things can’t be avoided. But some of them can.

You’ll Have More Free Time

I doubt you count ‘worrying about everything you’re not good at’ as time well spent.

I recognize that ‘just stop worrying’ doesn’t seem like actionable advice, but it is. You learned how to worry over time, and you can learn how to stop worrying over time too. Everything we do is a skill we’ve developed. You just have to decide which skills you want to practice.

Oh, and by the way, Superman was terrible at relationships, and a chronic liar to boot. Plus his girlfriend was always having her life threatened. Not what I’d call an exceptional role model. And Batman could never hold down a stable relationship. Tony Stark was an alcoholic. Do I need to continue?