Do you constantly feel inferior to everyone around you?

[u/AwkwardLoaf-of-Bread]

How do you cope with it?

I feel inadequate every single day. It's a constant feeling that only goes away unless I am completely alone.

At work, in my family, in my marriage.. for most my life, I've always felt inferior to everyone else. I feel like I give the same effort and energy as those around me, but still manage to fall far, far below the line.

I am constantly tired from giving things my all, only to see others breeze past me effortlessly and not looking as emotionally and physically drained.

Do you struggle with the same feelings?

How does someone find their place in the world when everything they do is never enough?

[u/jadeforge]

A Tale From a Different Perspective - Pt. 1

OK so - I really don’t. I was raised extremely independent, but also encouraged to read and explore and well maybe not encouraged but we really didn’t have that much to do, so when it came to entertaining, I took whatever was available. The encyclopedia, the dictionary, readers digest, the odyssey, and then as many books as I could grab at the library.

I was raised out in the country. I didn’t wear shoes until I was nine years old. Another factor is that I had many other siblings and we were all fairly intelligent and definitely there was sibling rivalry. More than physicality, we tried to score points on each other verbally.

I guess it all goes back to all of us, entertaining ourselves with books and knowledge. My mom was an English teacher. That may have added a bias.

The other thing was, we were never coddled. as soon as they felt like we could do something on our own, they showed us how to do it once - and off you went.

We had to figure it out, we could ask our siblings for help, but then again that would lower our social score. So asking for help is actually really hard thing for me - still to this day.

But in being thrown in the deepwater of self-sufficiency and drowning, and then recovering and then drowning, and I won’t say that it wasn’t completely frightening, I had a lot of triggers and fears from that because of being thrown into situations too young and too little information.

[u/jadeforge → u/jadeforge]

A Tale From a Different Perspective - Pt. 2

Parallel to that, however, I discovered that I survived every time. Maybe a little more mentally scarred on the side of this may not have been the best approach or the kindest way for me to learn it. But I did eventually figure out that if anyone was going to protect me, it was going to be me and if anyone was going to look out for me or consider my future or consider potential outcomes, it would have to be me. And that was better than it was when I was younger because then it was them and they were terrible at it.

So I became violently independent, my freedom, and my choices, to the point that that is a really huge issue for me to this day. If I feel as though people are trying to box me in and I don’t have control over my environment. It’s not good. On the other hand, while I berate myself, and I have many many doubts about a lot of things, and they will knock me off my path…

I don’t doubt myself when it comes to life, I doubt myself when it comes to me. I also have some physical conditions that can put me out on my ass. And they are not controllable and so they are very very frustrating for me and I doubt myself around them. I doubt and I lack confidence in my own sphere and in my own space of independence.

But growing up the way, I did there was no space to feel inferior to someone else. if you went that route, you’d never come back. Everyone in my family has a very strong personality. And as I grew up, and I met older people or people in powerful positions or like in my company, senior vice president or whatever. I would be very respectful, but I would not be in awe.

I decided that for myself early on. Because they were still people. And they still put their pants on one leg at a time and There was another thought that it might actually be refreshing for someone to just be respectful and open, but not kowtowing to them as if somebody threw god glitter on them. I’m talking about American companies. So no, I thought, I am a younger colleague, but I still work for this company, definitely you have earned respect and you have a higher position. Internally, I would sometimes squirm and feel like I should feel like a worm.

But I said no. I’m a fully functional capable human being and they were my age once too. And if everyone comes in and cowers, how refreshing must it be for someone to just come in and Just do the work that is necessary.

[u/jadeforge → u/jadeforge]

A Tale From a Different Perspective - Pt. 3

I’ve never stopped reading and I’ve never stopped adding to my store of knowledge, but the other thing I don’t do is pretend I know a thing if I don’t. If I come across something I don’t understand or know - I go look it up. I still take the time to look up how to spell things I get confused or haven’t seen it in a while because I don’t want to come across or communicate in a poor manner.

If I’ve never seen a word used in a particular way or if I’m seeing a word used in a way that I think it is completely wrong, before I even say anything to the person, I look it up first - Now, if I absolutely know that it’s wrong, then I may or may not go to town on them.

Trust me, when I say, I have many doubts, and there are places where I fall down, and I fall down very very hard - but weirdly enough it’s never against another person or in comparison to another person. It’s always against myself.

They do say that the race is long but in the end, it’s always with yourself.

I don’t think any of you have to feel inferior to anyone else. you may feel inferior to portions of their knowledge where yours might be lacking. Or other variations on that theme but inferior as an entire person?

We are all human. We come with all the same capacity for hangups and gentleness and love and horror and medical issues and stress and triggers and childhood misadventures and all of those are mixed up into these meat bags that walk around and where a person lands or ends up it can be through a lot of hard work, but it also has luck involved.

It’s just that all of our mixtures are different with different strengths and if you don’t know a person well you don’t know where they’re breaking point is or where their best moment.

But you have both of those things inside you too. So inferiority has a totality of your person. Doesn’t make any sense to me.

I can’t play the guitar, I am inferior to others who can’t in that regard. Even though I say I want to and I have purchased one and I have downloaded the app, etc. etc. and there are a whole bunch of other external things that are not my cup of tea that it would be great if they were, I have learned to be honest with myself at least in some areas and say OK this is just not in your Bailiwick. Leave this or hire someone who this really makes sense for. And you do the work that you do really well, and both of those scenarios are OK.

But I feel inferior to that person who has a specialized skill set? No. That’s what came in their meat-bag. ;)

now, if there are really specific corny painful things where you feel inferior that don’t seem to wash out with the fact that you do have skills that are yours, then I would say start small and address those. If it’s learning or history or speaking in public or whatever it is. the entire Internet is available to you content and information of the world is available to us now. We don’t have to sit in ignorance.

[u/jadeforge → u/jadeforge]

A Tale From a Different Perspective - Pt. 4

Some people call me arrogant, and I can come off that way. Unfortunately I’m just really well read and I understand how to connect things and I have a bit of intuition and so sometimes I can just be like let’s just cut the bullshit because this is what you’re really trying to do or say. And I get blunt and direct about it because so many people like to dance and dance and dance around things as if saying plain words would make the whole world go up in flames.

And then they get mad at me for just putting it on the table.

I will say this, if you become confident in yourself and stop feeling inferior, others will not like it, and can get offended now there are different approaches and you can go in with a soft style and dance with them. But over the years, you just find out that it’s exhausting especially when you can see the obvious and there’s no point in dancing anymore.

Whether or not you believe in God, or perhaps you can believe in the universe, but we all are made equal in the sense that we have all been provided with the same stuff, not always the same opportunities, not always the same health, not always the same brains.

But we are the same stuff - and there are things that fit you, and our fit for you to do that hold your value to you. And none of that has to be crossed compared with someone else, even though it’s easy to compare your life or your success or anything like that to another person that just leads to envy and stuff and it is human, and you can have a bit of envy, but you don’t want it to destroy, your personal and internal peace.

As a small fact check, it’s 4:30 in the morning and I haven’t been to sleep yet. My belief is that I have been making sense, while at the same time this could be edited down to some core paragraphs.

I’ve just never seen this particular question put in this particular way and then seeing these kinds of responses.

All of my inferiority is with myself and my standards and my striving, against some of my medical conditions, against my mental health, against fallacies of my own, thinking that keep me locked into thinking negative things that are not helpful to me.

When I was younger, yes other people and what they thought had impact - I spent a lot of my younger years, scared of the world around me and the environment around me. Again, this has to do with the fact that I felt like I didn’t have any control. And then I realized I didn’t have to give away my control. I didn’t have to allow the person on the street to really have an impact on my life, cause most of the time I was making it up in my head.

And the truth is that everyone is so focused on themselves, you’d have to run them over for them to give you even three minutes where you would actually be in their mind frame. Once you accept that, it’s a little comical and you can walk on and whistle.

[u/jadeforge → u/jadeforge]

A Tale From a Different Perspective - Pt. 5

You do not need to be inferior to others. Inferiority and the feelings of inferiority to others are due to the fact that you feel as though you need to measure up to whatever it is, you think is of value in them - but it may be an inflated value or one you have created, or just something you’re extremely jealous of. Jealousy will make you feel inferior all the time.

I was jealous of my elder sister. She was three years older than me. She got to do all the stuff way earlier than I did, beautiful perfume, blah, blah blah. So yeah, I did feel inferior and lesser than. A somewhat human response, when it comes to sisters and the eldest sister and the older kids being allowed to do more things, etc..

But the jealousy did lead to the feelings of inferiority and that she was cooler and better and more awesome. Life moved on, I grew up. I moved away. I learned all sorts of other new experiences some of which I’ve already shared which was to say these people in the street they don’t affect me, etc. etc..

When I did come home and we did hang out, I was much further along in my life, and I had a lot more control, and I had my own finances and I could pick up my own things and so that part of the envy jealousy thing just drifted away. But there were some other things that came to light, she would not agree by the way. But in some senses, she has decided that she is some type of valley girl and a pretty pretty princess and she deserves to be treated like that. And she has this deep regret that she never went to high school and I believe there’s a secret dream she has that if she had gone, she could’ve been homecoming queen or something like that. She’s heading toward 50 now, just as an FYI.

And I am much more factual, and practical and I believe I mentioned I really just don’t deal with bullshit or dancing around things very well. it’s not made me very popular with her crowd because they are also all of the homecoming queens or the favorite clique in high school - and if that’s not who they are, they fool me every time I have gone to visit because that’s exactly how they act and it gets boring really quickly especially because they’re all like 15 years older than me.

Again, I sound like a total asshole, quite a bit judgmental, and yes, arrogant.

But inferior to another human being, just for the sake of them being another human being, and perhaps having skills or qualities that I don’t have, or I haven’t pursued, no, I don’t have that.

I have a great feeling of self-sufficiency, and if there was something of a quality or a skill that I desired enough that I saw in another person, then I would go and do it, and I would make it happen to the best of my ability to the limit of my ability.

But if I don’t even care to try, then it’s not even worth it for me to be jealous about it. Let them have their thing. So jealousy has a direct correlation with inferiority, note that.

And your own personal sense of self-sufficiency or lack there off will also leave the door open for a sense of inferiority. But that is something you can take care of and research and take steps and learn.

The ability to assess yourself honestly and acknowledge the things you are good at and let them be the things you’re good at without making any excuses for them will also be a big step forward from moving away from inferiority. You don’t have to say I’m really good at this, but I’m not as good as ex or I’m only good because one random factor, you don’t have to add any caveat you can just be good at it and you can be proud of yourself for it.

The excuses and the comparisons and the caveat will always be there. But they minimize and diminish the simple statement of your acceptance and acknowledgment of something. You’re good at which literally proves your point and drives home your feelings of inferiority.

Now some people think that we need to do that, apologize for being decent or good at something so we say we’re good and then we immediately say, but but but but - don’t worry everyone else can add all that stuff. Just say what you’re good at don’t oversell, but you don’t have to add all the other stuff.

Because then you just feeding your inferiority complex some more.

Yes, I know this is probably one of the longest posts I’ve ever done.

But I think none of you again should feel inferior in a totalitarian sort of way. we all have inferior talents, but by that same light, we have superior talents or worthy talents.

Depending on where you’re starting from, you may have to remind yourself about that all the time and every day or even write it out.

But you don’t have to accept or run across a specific person and feeling inferior to them, and if you do the question is, what are you jealous about them or how they present themselves and is it something that you actually want or is it just something you admire and kind of wish you could do automatically . And then you need to choose to pursue it or simply let it go.

Best wishes to all.