You’ve tried shadow journaling, manifesting and microdosing. But to really succeed in life, have you considered getting a nemesis?
I totally recommend it. After all, willpower fades. Apps rarely change your life. Even frenemies aren’t reliably hateable. You need the kind of fuel that’s born from unadulterated jealousy, from focused indignation. It’s a feeling that boils down to: That guy?
You do not have to actually start a brawl or commit a crime or generally do something you’ll regret. Honestly, it’s probably better if you don’t tell anyone at all. Outside, I appear to be a perky suburban mother of two powered by chai lattes and a solid work ethic. Inside, I’m entertaining a vivid revenge fantasy starring both my college boyfriend and someone I worked with in 2008. This is the key to pretty much every personal and professional accomplishment I’ve achieved since then.
Many successful people understand the power of a grudge — athletes, pop stars, your mother-in-law, our president. Kendrick Lamar clearly gets it. On the first Sunday of the month, he turned his feud with Drake into multiple Grammys. On the second Sunday, he converted it into a rousing halftime show at the Super Bowl. I am excited to see what he has in store for the remainder of February.
Emotion can pick up the slack even after training and talent have reached their limits.
Research by a professor at the Wharton School found that underdogs perform better because they want to prove others wrong. Research by me (unscientific) has found that it feels really good to stick it to people who doubted you. Even if only silently in your head.
Start by taking things personally. It worked for Michael Jordan. Here’s a partial list of things he was offended by, according to the documentary series “The Last Dance”: A rival coach not saying hi to him while out to dinner. A rival player saying hi to him — “Nice game, Mike” — at the gym. Anyone who wasn’t him winning an M.V.P. award.
Also, best not to mention his name in the same breath as an opponent, like poor Clyde Drexler.
“Me being compared to him, I took offense to that,” Jordan says, explaining why he decimated Drexler on the court.
The more I’ve looked into this, the more it seems that being angry — or at the very least annoyed — is essentially a prerequisite for doing something wildly impressive. Tom Brady, who my husband informs me has won a lot of Super Bowls, speaks in interviews of creating an enemy and scanning the opposition for signs of disrespect. He seems to generally find it.
Taylor Swift wrung a haunting, 10-minute breakup anthem from a relationship that appears to have lasted roughly three months. Other songs in her catalog are thought to be about beef with, in no particular order: Kim Kardashian, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, her old record label, the guy who bought the master recordings from her old record label and Katy Perry. The latter’s transgression was, allegedly, stealing one of Ms. Swift’s backup dancers.
“Babe, she would feud with a lamp,” one user said of Ms. Swift in a Reddit post. (The topic of that post was Ms. Swift’s rumored falling out with Olivia Rodrigo, but really, it could have been about anyone in the aforementioned lineup.)
I find this so relatable. Yes, celebrities often seem to be handed ready-made nemeses: opposing teams, Oscar competitors. But grievances abound. I have never dated a movie star, but I was ghosted by one of my bridesmaids. You just have to find the right nemesis for you.
Politics offers plenty of options, though that feels a little on the nose these days. Social media, with all its harrowing upward comparisons, is a better next step. Here is everyone you went to high school with, sharing photos of the best things that have ever happened to them, topped off with filters that make them look younger than they did at junior prom.
To whittle down the possibilities, concentrate on people whose curated accomplishments are exactly what you secretly wish you could brag about, too. If you need more clarity on this, ask yourself the question an executive once threw my way: “What’s the real dream?” This query launched me into an existential panic attack during work hours. You can handle it, though.
Collect yourself. Admit the answer. (Start that business, move to Rome, do the thing you swore you’d do in 2016.) Scroll your feed until you find someone else doing it. Come on, you’re smarter/better/hotter than her. Why not you?
I have found that, in a pinch, partners can fit the nemesis bill. This should be a time-limited exercise — if it’s dragging on, it’s probably time to break up. I actually really love my husband; our love grows deeper by the year. (Thirteen in April!) But also, he recently left me alone with our young children and even younger puppy for a five-day ski trip to Colorado. Picturing him enjoying the powder while I cared for our dependents around the clock gave me the strength to keep everyone alive until his return, and the strength to inform him that he’ll now be taking out the dog every night, for forever.
I know, deep down, that my desire for a nemesis often comes back to my own insecurity. I am afraid I can’t do something — win the job, excel at the new hobby — so I refuse to try … until I get mad enough. It took a work reorganization and parenting two toddlers during a pandemic to finally get me to lace up my running shoes, a longtime goal.
Running, it turns out, is an excellent time to contemplate your detractors, and generally work through things you thought you’d resolved in therapy. My routine is thus: I put on ’90s rap music. I wave goodbye to my kids. I set off down the street. A montage starts playing in my mind, like that crescendoing scene in a movie where they’re preparing to fight the aliens, except this time it’s just me on an imaginary track, sprinting past everyone who’s ever wronged me.
I feel amazing.
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