Shadowing Practice: a warning for high achievers - Learn English Speaking with Video
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I did everything right.
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I tried every single sport until I found one that stuck.
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I grinded through my entire four years of high school so that I could get into a good college.
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I did a competitive internship in New York City.
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I posted every single week on YouTube for five years until I built a community of hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
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I did everything.
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I tried my absolute hardest.
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And it still wasn't enough to get me the success that I wanted.
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Because somehow, no matter how hard I try, I'll always feel like I'm falling behind.
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Like I'm failing.
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Does that sound like you?
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Because if so, then you're just like me.
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Someone who stacks up their external life achievements just to feel like they're enough.
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Someone who gives their 110%.
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Someone who, theoretically, should feel like enough.
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I've spent my entire life up until now putting one foot in front of the other, running as fast as I can towards the finish line without bothering to look up.
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And I wake up most mornings feeling like a lazy, worthless potato.
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Not even in a self -deprecating way, but in a genuine structural way.
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Like there is some internal meter that never moves and leaves me perpetually behind.
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And for a long time I thought that I was the problem.
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That there was something deeply wrong with me.
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Why was I never satisfied?
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Why was I always jealous of other people's achievements?
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yet unimpressed by my own.
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Why couldn't I for once just be satisfied?
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What I didn't know then
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and what I'm about to break down for you in this video is
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that this wasn't about me or about you or about any one of us individually.
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The chronic disappointment in ourselves isn't a character flaw.
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It's a design feature.
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We aren't failing the system.
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The system is working as intended.
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It's just working against us.
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We are all raised on the same story.
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Work hard, be smart, make the right choices, and the world will reward you.
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So as long as you do things right, follow the rules, and put of your effort into everything, there is no way that you won't succeed.
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And if you don't succeed, well that means that you didn't try your hardest.
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It also means that you're essentially a failure.
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The word meritocracy first appeared in print in 1956 in an article by British sociologist Alan Fox.
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Fox was trying to put a name to something he was observing in modern society.
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A new way of ranking people.
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One that was quietly replacing the old aristocratic ways of birth and class with something that felt more fair on the surface.
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A combination of ability, intelligence, and effort.
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Two years years later, British sociologist and politician Michael Young brought the term meritocracy to mainstream consciousness with his satirical dystopian novel, The Rise of the Meritocracy,
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written explicitly in the mold of Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984.
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Young imagined a nightmare future society ruled by an educated, entitled elite who believed with complete sincerity that they deserved all of their power.
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The new hierarchy wasn't built on bloodlines or inheritance, it was built on IQ tests, on exam results and school credentials.
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Sound familiar?
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The new hierarchy It looked fair.
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Even now it probably sounds fair to you.
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Does it not?
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And that's precisely what makes it so cool.
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When the system seems fair, you can no longer point to the system for failure.
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You can only point to yourself.
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If you were curious, the book actually ends in revolt.
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The narrator, a true believer in the merit of meritocracy, is killed in the social unrest that he denied.
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Young delivers the news in a single dry footnote.
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Since the author of this essay was himself killed at Peterloo, the publishers regret that they were not able to submit to him the proofs of his manuscript.
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Young was giving us a warning about meritocracy.
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And what do we do with that warning?
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Oh, oh yeah, we turn it into the blueprint.
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Meritocracy is the foundational myth of our free, democracy -based society.
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The idea that everyone begins at the same starting line.
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And how far you get from there, your position in the race of life is determined by only one thing: your merit, how hard you work.
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It's the myth that success is earned, not inherited.
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That the playing field, while not perfectly level, is level enough to consider effort the first and primary variable.
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the right hustle and the right place and the right time, would get you to something called success.
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What we forgot though was what success actually looked like once you got there.
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We never asked when we could stop and be satisfied.
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There is a particular texture, a sour taste to being a high achiever in today's world.
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Someone your age has probably done extraordinary things.
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Things you can only ever dream of doing.
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Things you know that in this lifetime you could probably never do.
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And while that kind of makes you feel inspired, it mainly just makes you feel like shit.
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Like when measured against someone else's extraordinary things, your extraordinary things are pretty ordinary.
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Someone in the room has done it better, earlier, and with more credentials than you have.
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And with social media, it has never been easier to fact check that.
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Merit has become equivalent to our worth.
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And when merit becomes equivalent to worth, things get scary.
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Michael Sandel, a philosopher, professor at Harvard, and author of The Tyranny of Merit, can help us out with this.
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His core argument is this.
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Meritocracy becomes tyrannical when it stops being something like a hiring principle
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and starts looking more like a cosmic verdict on your worth as a person.
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winners and losers.
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We tell the losers that they deserved to lose.
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That their failure isn't a temporary outcome, it's a permanent character flaw.
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And that produces something genuinely terrifying.
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The hubris of the winners and the humiliation of the losers creates a trap of believing
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that every failure and success is a reflection of who you are, rather than any external circumstances.
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Every metric that isn't actively growing is proof that you're not working hard enough, you're not smart enough, you're just not enough.
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Sandell calls this the tyranny of merit.
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And the worst part is that it never goes away.
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When you're failing, it's there to remind you that this is all your fault.
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And when you're succeeding, it makes you feel like you haven't actually arrived at success.
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It creates a deep fear of failure because at any time, your entire worth could be stripped from you.
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And you'll just become one of the losers.
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Let's take a quick step backwards.
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Why was this system created in the first place?
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How did we get here?
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Here is where we're gonna get deep in the political theory.
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Don't worry, I've written down all my notes.
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They're all here on Notability.
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Shout out Notability, by the way.
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This app genuinely saved my life this past semester, guys.
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I would not be here without it.
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Being able to handwrite all of my notes
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and have them automatically converted to text and be searchable is such a game changer.
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Also, the most amazing annotation and summarization capabilities for literally any PDF in the universe.
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And it came especially in clutch for this video where I'm pulling from not one, not two, not three, but four different PDFs.
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Four different books, girls.
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I did my research.
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most shocking and uncomfortable thing I've read in a long time and by far the most inspiring.
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His argument is that liberalism didn't fail.
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It wasn't implemented badly.
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Actually, it was implemented successfully.
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And this is what its success looks like.
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Okay, quick clarification before we go any further.
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When I say liberalism, I don't mean left -wing politics.
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Danine and I, yes my good friend Danine, mean something much older.
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The entire philosophical tradition going back hundreds of years that defines freedom as the absence of constraint on the
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AKA the right to pursue your own dreams, your desires, your own definition of the good life.
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It is the giant communal pool that both the left and the right, all of America, swims in.
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Dineen argues that when you build an entire civilization around the individual, around the idea that you should be free to do whatever you want, unbeholden to anyone, you don't actually get people who are free.
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Instead, you get isolated people.
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People with access to every right in the world and no idea what to do with all of it.
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a good life look like?
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The local community, your family, the traditions passed down through generations.
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When you take all of those preconceived notions away, you're liberating people from those constraints, but you're simultaneously locking them into a new kind of confinement.
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What does a good life actually look like?
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How do I know?
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What am I supposed to be working towards?
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And in this lostness and confusion, the only guiding light is the market.
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It provides a clean and simple answer to all of these questions.
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What does a good life actually look like?
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It looks like getting more.
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It looks like getting better.
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It looks like getting better than the people around you you always always wanting more
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because now success is something
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that you can buy as long as you have the money
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to pay the price of course nothing's for free in the meritocracy but what
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if you don't want to just buy your success you want something more satisfactory more nourishing where do we find that?
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We don't have an answer.
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So what we're running towards isn't success.
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We're just running towards a direction.
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Maybe the direction of money or status.
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But those directions don't have finish lines.
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We have been running for so long in those directions that we've forgotten where we're even going.
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Okay.
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Pause.
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So what does this mean for us now?
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You might be thinking to yourself, Deneen, Sandell, and Young are just really well -credentialed Debbie Downers who are telling me the game is rigged
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and that I should stop playing.
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Is that it?
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Does this mean that I should just not try at all in life?
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That we should all fight against the system and become unemployed chuds?
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Let me be clear, that is not what I'm trying to say.
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Don't use this as an excuse to just become an unemployed chud.
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Unless you really want to, then it's your free will.
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I'm also not saying that we need to tear all of society down right now
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and restructure it from the top to the bottom.
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What I am saying is this.
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The way that we think about and internalize success needs to change.
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Eventually we'll get to out there, but let's start with In Here.
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Dineen actually provides a super useful framework in his book Regime Change.
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He calls it bottom -up localism.
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The importance of rebuilding what he calls thick communities.
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Tightly knit, local -rooted networks of people who know each other, show up for each other, and define each other by something other than just what they've achieved on paper.
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The kind of community that meritocracy quietly destroys.
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Because when the goal is to constantly get somewhere better, you never invest in the place that you currently are.
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Think neighborhoods, local volunteer groups, recreational clubs, close family networks, long -time friendships, being present in the communities that are literally around you.
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We can't keep sacrificing the now for the later." Deneen calls this the "Tocqueville option" named after Alexei de Tocqueville,
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the 19th century French thinker who observed that what made American democracy actually work wasn't the federal government.
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It was ordinary citizens showing up for their community, their neighbors, their family.
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Deneen argues that because of meritocracy we've lost that, but we can get it back.
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However, getting it back requires effort.
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In the meritocracy way.
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It requires showing up consistently, giving support selflessly, and being present with the people and places that you already claim as yours.
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Having a community and a support network that sees you as a person rather than a portfolio, produces something that meritocracy cannot prevent: the feeling of unconditional worth.
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The people who love you are completely immune to the metrics.
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They love you regardless of if you're succeeding or failing, regardless of whether you think you're enough.
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They love you just because, and they won't stop.
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So lean into them.
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And I mean actually lean in.
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Respond to your texts, make those plans, actually show up to those plans, don't bail.
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Do the volunteer work, sign up for that club, invest in the neighborhood where you live.
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As a way of reminding yourself that you exist outside of your output.
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The community piece is only half of it
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because you can have all of that publicly
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and still be suffering privately beyond
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and before showing care to others You have to learn how to show care to yourself loving yourself wholeheartedly
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and unconditionally is the greatest achievement It is the biggest Success of life
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and we should all be actively working towards it every single day
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because at the end of the day the only person who will be spending each
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and Every moment of your life with you every high
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and low every win and loss every failure
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and every success is you I'm saying that when you fail
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and you will we all will it's inevitable in the way
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that we talk to ourselves when it's two in the Morning
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and we feel like we're not doing enough in the jealousy
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that we feel towards others when they succeed at something in the way that we
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We're told that the antidote to all of this is just working harder, achieving more, being smarter, but it's none of those.
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It's learning to actually be on your own side, to dispel thoughts that don't serve you, to do away with needless comparison because not everyone needs to be an Olympian, okay?
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Learn to be as patient with yourself as you would be with someone that you love, to look at your own life and tell yourself that you can work with this, that you are enough.
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Not because you've earned it, not because you've done everything right, just because you are.
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that with every fiber of your being and you act upon that, you are going to be able to achieve anything you want.
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And if you do fail, you will never be too scared to get up and try again, because you know that you're already enough.
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Okay, everyone, that's all that I got today.
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Thank you so much for staying until the end.
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If you enjoyed this video essay, please give it a like and subscribe and stick around.
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Let me know what topics you want to see me talk about next.
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I love you all so, so, so much.
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See you in the next one.
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Bye bye!
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Bye.
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Esta lección de conversación de nivel C1 se basa en el vídeo “a warning for high achievers”. Este vídeo tiene 214 frases y 2520 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 12:17. El hablante habla rápido, unas 205 palabras por minuto, así que espera sonidos enlazados y reducidos. El 84 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés; conviene repasar el resto antes de empezar.
Vocabulario clave de este vídeo
Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| meritocracy sustantivo | /mɛɹəˈtɑkɹəsi/ | meritocracia |
| merit sustantivo | /ˈmɛɹɪt/ | mérito |
| loser sustantivo | /luzɚ/ | perdedor |
| credential sustantivo | /kɹɪˈdɛnʃəl/ | credencial |
| satisfy verbo | /ˈsætɪsfaɪ/ | satisfacer |
| sociologist sustantivo | sociólogo, socióloga | |
| liberalism sustantivo | /ˈlɪ.b(ə.)ɹə.lɪz.əm/ | liberalismo |
| tyranny sustantivo | /ˈtɪəɹəni/ | tiranía |
| flaw sustantivo | /flɔ/ | falla |
| hierarchy sustantivo | /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/ | jerarquía, hierarquía (disused) |
| metric adjetivo | /ˈmɛt.ɹɪk/ | métrico |
| unemployed adjetivo | /ˌʌnɪmˈplɔɪd/ | desempleado, cesante |
| observe verbo | /əbˈzɜːv/ | servar, observar |
| myth sustantivo | /mɪθ/ | mito |
| annotation sustantivo | /ˌæn.əˈteɪ.ʃən/ | anotación |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| do away with verbo | desechar, deshacerse de | |
| fall behind verbo | atrasar | |
| get up verbo | levantarse | |
| go away verbo | irse, marcharse | |
| look up verbo | /ˌlʊk ˈʌp/ | mejorar |
| pass down verbo | heredar, pasar | |
| show up verbo | comparecer, personarse | |
| wake up verbo | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | despertarse, recordar |
Frases que vale la pena repetir
Frases cortas y completas del vídeo que puedes reutilizar en la conversación diaria:
- Does that sound like you?
- Why was I never satisfied?
- Why was I always jealous of other people's achievements?
- Why couldn't I for once just be satisfied?
- How did we get here?
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | I've spent · has probably done · has done |
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | be satisfied · wasn't built · is killed |
| Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa | Someone who stacks · Someone who gives · people who are |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 67 contracciones y formas reducidas, como you're, don't, I'm. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “th”: myth /mɪθ/, worthless /ˈwɜːθ.ləs/
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: credential /kɹɪˈdɛnʃəl/, annotation /ˌæn.əˈteɪ.ʃən/, foundational /faʊnˈdeɪ.ʃə.nəl/, nourish /ˈnʌɹ.ɪʃ/, clarification /ˌklæɹɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: meritocracy /mɛɹəˈtɑkɹəsi/, liberalism /ˈlɪ.b(ə.)ɹə.lɪz.əm/, hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/, annotation /ˌæn.əˈteɪ.ʃən/, aristocratic /ˌæɹɪstəˈkɹætɪk/
Cómo practicar con este vídeo
- Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
- Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
- Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como meritocracy, merit, loser.
¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.