If lopping tall poppies and pricking balloons were a national sport, we’d be the best … but we couldn’t brag about it. Image: Viktor Aheiev.
I’m not sure at what point the Aussie kid first learns not to brag, but it’s a lesson I feel is imbibed organically in our culture.
You can celebrate achievements if it’s done with humility, but anything that could be construed as bragging or arrogant is a strict no-no.
Also, when you do celebrate or share your achievements with others, don’t expect to always get a ‘congratulations’ back with any degree of enthusiasm. We don’t make a fuss here in Australia. That’s just how it is.
Never has this hit me more clearly than when I was in New York recently during the New York Marathon. Now, I attend a lot of marathons and ultratrails because I have a family full of running fanatics who take it to new extremes by running 100 km (or, as my partner is about to do for the second time, 100 miles), so I see runners come through the finish flags after achieving truly incredible goals. Throughout the course, people will gather to ring cowbells and shout encouragement. We’ll wait at the finish line for the very last people to come through, even though we don’t know them.
I say this to caveat up front that I don’t think Australians aren’t capable of giving support and encouragement and genuinely celebrating human achievement. But at the end of the run, after participation medals have been received, we tend to go home, put them in a drawer, and leave it at that. Maybe there’s a few pics shared on social media. The towel or t-shirt you earned from the race will go into a steady rotation of running and gym gear, and you’ll sign up again for the next year. End of story.
But at the New York Marathon? The vibe was, let’s say, different.
That day, it was nice to see people walking through Manhattan wearing the (albeit strange) orange capes they were handed at the finish lines, sporting their medals. It’s a big city – it makes sense to travel on the subway with your medal and cape on display. Totally normal.
The next day, though, I was in a different part of the city, and many people were walking around with their marathon medals. They were dressed in ordinary clothing, going about their days, but still wearing their medals. And then the day after – a full two days post-marathon – and we were at the airport watching even more people wearing their medals in the immigration and security queues.
At this point, I started to raise my eyebrows. The medals sparked conversation – other people would ask about them, congratulate the wearer, etc. Obviously, they had to be taken off for security, but they were back on after that, proudly displayed on their chests.
Something about this made me automatically feel … nonplussed. Why are you still wearing your medal, I wondered, if not just for attention? I could not imagine Australians doing this – and having run an informal poll on social media, thousands of other Aussies agree that it’s a bit weird. Many pointed out that it would be considered bragging in Australia and ostentatious. If you have to demand attention in that way, you probably don’t deserve it. One commenter pointed out they couldn’t even imagine an Olympian doing that.
That definitely validated my original reaction, but who was it harming?
The Americans were chatting with the medal-wearers and they were more than happy to offer their praise to strangers and chat about their marathon experience, and everyone seemed to leave feeling good about themselves. A marathon is a big deal for a novice runner (and with entry to the New York Marathon costing around $300, it was also a big expense), so if they wanted to extend the experience of satisfaction having completed it, why did I feel the need to rain on their parade?
Reflecting on this further, I realised that we tend to classify people as ‘good winners’ or ‘bad winners’. The former will humbly dismiss their success, saying things like ‘I got lucky’, or ‘I had really great support leading up to this’ etc. The latter happily take the spotlight they have earned, and own it – ‘I’m really proud of what I’ve achieved’ or ‘I worked so hard to get here’. We seem happy enough to celebrate success as long as the person achieving it remembers their place or isn’t too eager to claim it themselves, whereas openly celebrating yourself is automatically seen as distasteful.
Is our internalised tall poppy syndrome about encouraging humility and self-awareness, or is it actually about jealousy and being unable to celebrate someone else’s pride in their own achievements? And where does it come from? What makes this such an Australian reaction?
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