My Idealism Is Stopping Me From Being Successful

But who cares.

Photo by Donald Wu on Unsplash

I’d always struggled with this.

Back in my video production days, looking at how other people — my friends, competitors, colleagues — were thinking about business, I felt out of place.

“You’re too idealistic,” they said when I mentioned that we should hire only the best staff and fire clients we don’t like working with. “In business, you’ve got to think with a cold head.”

Deep inside, I never agreed with that. But on the surface, I constantly blamed myself for not being practical enough.

My idealism is still fucking with me everywhere I turn.

But the problem, as my therapist once pointed out, is not with the problem itself. It’s with your attitude towards it. It’s with the guilt and self-blame. Would it still be a problem if you don’t think it’s a problem? That’s a good question to ask yourself from time to time.

In my case, I think of idealism as a problem when it comes to work and relationships. I don’t want to date “just anybody” — I am very picky when choosing a partner. The same when it comes to friends. For a long time, I struggled with finding true friends because I thought my current ones weren’t “good enough.”