The Cost of Being Good
Everybody is good at something they practice unknowingly, something that comes naturally to them or emerges from habits built subconsciously. You don't realise how good you've become until you're placed in an environment that directly tests it. This is also why most people carry that lack of self worth, thinking they aren't good enough, because they've been measuring themselves against the wrong standard.
But when you're in an environment where your particular skillset is valued, you naturally rise to the top. You realise that being on top is easier than expected, maybe because the competition is weak, or maybe because you're being arrogant. The things you've practiced a thousand times without realising it makes you sharper than the rest of the crowd.
This attracts a particular kind of envy you're almost never prepared to handle. People resent you for being good. They hate you because they have to accept they're nowhere close to you. You try being humble, try to motivate them, but that only fuels the fire further, because by virtue of your skillset, you've made them feel inferior. And nobody likes feeling inferior.
This makes you the most popular person in that environment, for that particular moment, because everybody either wants to hate you or join you. You'll experience both camps. If you've never seen hate before, you'll see it in its most naked form. The ugliness of human nature surfaces, and you realise the world isn't such a pleasant place.
Then there are people who'll be good to you, but only until they've confirmed whether you have some special technique they can leverage. They're the opportunists. They want to extract the best from everyone and everywhere, which is an excellent survival trait but a poor human one. They'll admire you, praise your talent, act like they have your best interests at heart. They'll even feed you gossip about the people who hate you behind your back. And you'll consume all of it, eager to understand the depravity of human nature, unaware that one of its clearest examples is standing right in front of you.
Not everything is bad, though. There are people who'll admire you for what you've done. It's rare, but some will be genuinely happy to see you doing well, both in life and in the moment. They want you to succeed. Usually, they're the ones who've always believed in you, always rooted for you. There will also be people below your skill level who genuinely want to learn from you. They'll surrender to you the way a disciple surrenders to a teacher. It becomes your duty to share the secret everyone's dying to learn: that Bruce Lee was right all along. Practice that one punch ten thousand times.
Displaying your prowess always brings out the worst in human nature, because prowess implies superiority, and superiority implies that others are inferior. Nobody likes feeling inferior. Sure, they could raise their own standards, or master something else entirely, but more often than not, people try to diminish someone superior so they don't have to confront that feeling. That's the bedrock of "equality" movements around the world. That's also why it feels like the conversation has shifted from equal rights to equal treatment.
Be so good at what you do that the world resents the respect it's forced to give you. When you walk into a room, they know instantly they're in the presence of someone they can't compete with, let alone beat. Find that one thing you've always been good at, the one you never noticed.