Does everyone think they’re a 10?

93% of people rate themselves an above-average driver. Mathematically impossible, but somehow we're all a 10.

If you're curious, this is called the better-than-average effect, and it's especially pronounced in the US and other individualistic cultures. It's actually a beneficial adaptive behavior. "Positive illusions" correlate with better mental health. People who see themselves more favorably tend to be more resilient, more motivated, and recover faster from setbacks. They try things. They put themselves out there.

Here's the thing nobody says aloud: that "better than average" effect isn't evenly distributed. There are skews. Men are more prone to positive illusions than women. Wealth shapes what we believe we inherently deserve. People who grew up being told they were special, who had parents that advocated for them, who walked into rooms where everyone already looked like them. That baseline belief, "I'm a unicorn," isn't a personality trait. It's a bolster society builds over time.

And then it compounds. Confidence gets rewarded, whether it's accurate or not. The kid who raises their hand gets called on. They get seen as a go-getter. More opportunities get offered. The opportunity builds real skill. The skill justifies the confidence retroactively. Now, regardless of where that person started, they're above the curve. And it looks earned. They started halfway down the track.

Here's my confession: I never had such positive illusions. For a long time I thought I was an inconvenient POS.

I was slow to read. I went to kindergarten too young. Had undiagnosed ADHD. My mom cut my bangs for far too long. You get the picture. 

One of the strange gifts that came out of that early belief system was that I never aimed to be a 10. It didn't feel possible, so I just... didn't give it much thought. I wasn't tracking my score because it never occurred to me I was in the game.

My approach gave me freedom. I wasn't performing for anyone. I wasn't contorting myself to fit a mold I didn't like the shape of. I just was.

Then high school happened, and I realized: not caring about the score is the thing that makes you a feral outsider. People don't like it when you opt out of the ranking system. It's unsettling to people who have subscribed to Beige Life Mag. It's treated as a bug, not a feature.

The script says: figure out what a 10 looks like, then become that. And if you refuse to play, there's something wrong with you.

But the script is wrong. Because there is no universal 10.

A cactus is a 10 in the desert and completely useless in a swamp. That doesn't make it a bad plant. It means it's in the wrong place.

So what do you do if nobody handed you the scaffolding and you're not sure you have the rules to the game everyone else is playing? Can positive illusion be faked? Can you just decide to believe you're great when nothing in your history backs that up? The whole "fake it 'til you make it" advice is basically telling someone who never got the flywheel to spin one up from scratch.

Here's what I think actually works, and it's what I did by accident before I had the language for it: stop grading yourself on the wrong scale long enough to accidentally land somewhere you're a 10 without trying.

Follow the weird thing only you find interesting. That's a curve you draw yourself.

The people I know who are actually thriving (not performing, but genuinely thriving) aren't the ones who scored highest on some rubric. They're the ones who stopped auditioning for roles they didn't write.

Everyone is a 10 to someone. For a job. A friendship. A relationship. A weird niche thing only you care about. For fuck's sake, Sea Captain Date exists! 

Be the prickly weirdo in your chosen desert. The swamp dwellers were never going to get you anyway.

Stay unscripted my loves.

🖤 - EmmyLu