People Aren’t “Better” Than You — They Just Have More Experience
I sometimes feel a sense of inadequacy when I gaze upon something great.
A triple-A video game, a masterful painting, a world-class film, well-written text, and so on.
We consume things like art and media for entertainment. People create, we enjoy — that’s the arrangement. Whilst I am grateful for these things and their creators, I can’t help but experience inferiority.
I was watching a trailer for a video game a few days ago. All I could think of was how well put together it was. Luscious character models and environments, smooth animations, and fun gameplay mechanics to tie them together. That’s not to mention the sound design and voice acting, either. Instead of thinking “wow, I really want to play this” like I normally have in the past, all I could think of was “the people who worked on this are amazing…I’ll never be as good as them”.
Maybe it’s a sign of low self-esteem, I don’t know. However, I can’t deny that I often think like this. I sit back and wonder what I’ve done with my life, comparing myself to these exceptional animators and artists who have come together to produce something I could never dream of.
It’s not just content creators, either. I’m prone to think this about anyone within a position of reverence. Company directors, high-level managers, successful businesspeople, those within highly senior positions…and more. Sometimes, I think that these people are cut from a completely different cloth.
This is such a horrible way to view the world, though. I realised I couldn’t go through life seeing people in this way; short-selling myself and deeming others superior. It turns out the solution to this vortex of insecurity was to realise one thing:
People aren’t intrinsically better than me. They’re just more experienced at a particular thing, and have been willing to commit to something for a long time (with a bit of luck on their side).
That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.
It has nothing to do with being inherently “better” or “worse” than someone as a human being. Simply, if you do something for long enough with a degree of direction, intelligence, and adaptability, you will improve at said thing. Things will come more naturally to you. You’ll be quicker, do the thing with greater skill, and have a hunger for improving. As you improve, you’ll gain confidence, which will breed competence. This synergy of confidence and competence will allow you to take on more responsibilities and progress at that which you find yourself committed to.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of feeling inadequate. And sure, it’s true that some people do seem naturally better at certainly things than others (“built different”), or have been given a head start in life. But these are not excuses to disqualify yourself from doing what you love, or to feel like you have failed at life. We all start somewhere in life, and being at Chapter 1 doesn’t mean you’re inferior just because others are at Chapter 16 or whatever. It’s the activity they’re more experienced at, not that they’re just better than you.
Lastly, and I really emphasis this point, do not try to become great at something just because you want to be better than someone. Unless you’re playing a competitive sport or something similar where the task is to succeed over an opponent, your focus should be on building upon your current self with integrity. What do you value? What do you want? Are you doing something because you want it, or because you want to please someone else? When everything aligns, it doesn’t matter if others are so-called better than you at an activity — you’ll be loving life too much to care.
The ultimate adjudicator for aptitude is experience. Once again: nothing more, nothing less.
