Suffer fools gladly

This is part of a series “Lessons from my internship experience”

# 1

They say that comparison is a thief of joy. Most people use it as an antidote to envy and insecurity, but I use it differently. If you are ambitious, driven, and risk-taking, you will be disappointed how rare a specimen you are in the workplace. Achieving excellence is a lonely journey. Accepting that you are different from others are makes you a happier person.

I am a person who values work very much. Great work inspires meaning in me that no other activity and pleasure can provide. Therefore, naturally, I have high standards on the work that I do, and I can feel upset if I don’t do things that doesn’t reach my bar of excellence, even if my senior praises my work. I didn’t take long to realize most people are not like that.

Most people don’t have big dreams in their career. They are reactive and lazy, complaining and mellow. They produce second-rated results because they have different priorities, or are distracted by anxiety, irrational fear and limiting beliefs. They are what Steve Jobs called B and C players.

I have encountered many losers during my internships. If I had a choice, I would stay away from them as much as I can, or simply quit the company. This is unrealistic if you are an employee, especially a broke intern like I was. I was part of a team, and no manner how unadmirable your teammates are, I still had to work with them. For a long time, it gave me unnecessarily torture of disappointment and resentment.

Then one day, I decided to accept reality that for better or worse, most people are mediocre. Miraculously, I enjoyed working with my colleagues more, and I got even more motivated to work harder. P/S: I think they like to work with me more too.

The reason is not because I don’t feel superior over them anymore (actually I still do), I just choose not to project my beliefs and values to them. I don’t impose standards that they cannot live up to. Doing otherwise is wasted emotional effort.

Dealing with people who have smaller dreams than you is a skill. It starts from radical acceptance. Over time, you will learn to tame your superiority complex, and practice on focus in producing not criticizing. Save your emotional and mental energy for yourself and people you truly care about.

I try not to talk to losers too much, and if I do, I make sure I speak in a friendly, professional manner. When they comment on something stupid like “work-life balance”, or speak about their irrational fear, I have learnt to shut off my ears immediately, and open them up when it is over. After some practice, you will be surprised how calm you are in these situations.

When they try to impose their vacuous lifestyle on to you, learn to fend off these influences skillfully. If you feel annoyed by their comments, sometimes near the point of lashing out, you are not doing it right. If you uphold a very open-mindset, believing all lifestyle are good, you are not doing it right either. Such thinking will allow those words to insinuate into your unconscious, and gradually nudge you off from your locus of control.

As practiced by many famous entrepreneurs such as Rockefeller and Steve Jobs, rather than trying to change B and C players, they would rather not employ them. Elon Musk said that by showing an example of what you want others to be, you might inspire some people to raise their bar. I hope to have that effect. So far, my efforts have been in vain – but that is okay. Live and let live.