When Someone Is Better Than You
It’s hard to acknowledge intelligence in someone, especially when that intelligence is greater than yours. The person who does that deserves as much respect as the intelligent person being admired. Because to admire someone, you need dual awareness: one of your own strengths and where you lack, and another of the superiority of the other person.
Most people lack every kind of awareness. They can at least acknowledge their own shortcomings, but to acknowledge someone else’s superiority is nigh impossible for them. Humility in its true form is not an easy thing to practice. You can be humble with words, but to actually bow down when you face a smarter person is harder than it looks.
You think acknowledging someone gives them the upper hand. You are giving them the license to be arrogant, and you will naturally look smaller. But in truth, you are lower in stature. Whether you accept the fact or not does not mean the fact doesn’t exist. Truth owes no allegiance to your feelings.
If the gap is wide enough, others will notice it too. A better alternative is to surrender to the fact that you are outsmarted, that others are better than you. You think it damages your reputation, but in fact, it will uplift it. Your mind will no longer have to work hard to create illusions in the name of defending your ego. You can actually dedicate your energy to learning from them.
That is the ultimate objective when you identify that someone is better than you. You learn what makes them better than you, what you can do to achieve that level of superiority, or even surpass them.
This is not out of competition but out of self-improvement. If you truly want to improve your life, you need to accept that some areas of your life require improvement. And that is only possible if you accept that there are areas where you are not good enough.
To accept another person as better than you requires courage as well as heightened awareness. It’s when you show enough courage to accept your flaws that you are ready to walk on the path of improvement. Because then you give your mind only one goal, without any conflict: to become a superior version of yourself.