It’s one of those subtle terms we use to describe something in the superlative ranges of human behavior or achievement. It basically means to exceed or surpass the normally expected. It implies a sense of competition whereby someone outdoes the opponent in a particular feat. And when we speak of outdoing ourselves, we mean competing with self.
But the term really becomes a mixture of meanings at times. For instance, if you “outdo” yourself on something, does that mean that you are outdone? In the South, that particular term means that you are put out with someone. I can remember as a child that my mother became outdone with some of my mischievous achievements when I really outdid myself.
Most of us were brought up with the notion that we ought to better ourselves. Climb the ladder of success by trying not only to exceed the standards set by others but excelling over the standards we set for ourselves. Ambition is a very noble goal until it enters the realm of the problematic perfectionists who, because they never can quite measure up to their own expectations, are forever frustrated with a feeling of incompleteness and failure. At some point in the quest to outdo ourselves, we come up to the wall and realize we can never be more than we are nor do more than we can do.
Human beings by definition are limited creatures, bound by time and space and ability. When we say that we are only human, we are not so much admitting defeat as confessing our true situation. There’s a limit to what we can do.
While I’m not a big believer in the doctrine of original sin [regular or crispy], at the heart of the biblical story is the notion that part of our problem is that we are trying to outdo ourselves and deceive ourselves into thinking that we are gods. From building the tower of Babel to keeping the Law perfectly, we human beings have been trying to outdo each other and ourselves in order to become God since day one. While it was called an original sin, it had devastating consequences. God became quite outdone with Adam and Eve’s attempt to outdo themselves and did them in by running than out of the Garden.
So here we are, done in by the ancestors according to the oral tradition and all myths appertaining thereunto. In a dog-eat-dog world, everyone tries to outdo their neighbor. Even on a personal level, the competition becomes quite trite: trying to outdo ourselves can become our very undoing .
What’s a person to do? Reinhold Niebuhr expressed the contradiction we feel when he prayed “O God, grant us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference.”