If you were born into a lower or lower middle class family, at one point or the other you would've felt what it feels like to be inferior. For all the noise made by motivational speakers and money grabbing pastors about how no one is better than you or no one is more intelligent than you, in the real world those nonsense talk does not apply. Some people are better and more intelligent than you. As a matter of fact, in your lifetime you'll meet at least one person who is incredibly better than you and will make you feel inferior. What will define you is how you react to the peculiar situation to either build or destroy yourself.
Despite the hardship in the society I grew up with a chip on my shoulder. The fact that I was intelligent as a little chap meant I was the one to cast long shadows on those around me, not the other way round. Elementary school, high school, I was dominant. For those years that I lost concentration and was knocked off my perch, I only saw it as allowing someone else to enjoy the limelight and not that they were better than me. I retained that mentality until my second year in the university when an incredible person waltz into my life.
Marcus was born into an upper middle class family. In his first year, his parents supplied him with everything he needed to be successful. Our paths crossed due to a mutual friend of ours who introduced us to each other. We formed a trio and were well known in our department - we were in the same department, same level. In terms of intelligence, from my estimation I was the most intelligent of the trio. However, I was clearly the laziest.
I covered up my laziness with quick thinking. That made me remain on par with people around me, but it also made me remain an average dude who was far behind the truly intelligent and hard working ones in the department. Despite that, I never felt inferior to the class topping dudes because I knew I could compete with them if I wanted to. Afterall, all I had to do was clean up my act, attend more classes, update my notes and read it. Easy peasy, right? The day my resolve was finally broken, it felt like an impossible dream.
Starting our final year in the university, we needed some excellent results to get the second class upper credit. Marcus told me he was going to score As in all the semester courses. I simply told myself I will score whatever grade needed to get the result I wanted. As the semester dragged on Marcus showed seriousness - he never missed a class. Me? I persisted with my nonchalant attitude to classes. Before the exams, he hid away all his games and gadgets and would sit on a spot and read for six straight hours while I was at the same time busy playing games on the phone.
When the results came out, I did better than the previous semesters but yet to meet my CGPA target. I wasn't sad because I have one semester to go. That's more than enough to get me to my target. While I was seated on a spot making permutations for the final semester, Marcus showed up with his result. When I saw it cold shivers ran down my spine. My friend had As in all his courses, a resounding 5.0 that dragged him into the second class upper credit he wanted. For the first time in my life, I felt incredibly inferior to someone.
As I walked home, my mind was simply an explosive battleground with two warring factions threatening to tear my brain off my head. A faction directly called me a lazy idiot who deserved the worst grade, the other faction defended me and claimed my friend scored excellent grades because he had everything he wanted, he ate whatever he wanted, and had zero money worries. The journey home was a painful one, but the realization that I couldn't do what my friend could pain me even more. The thought of those things he sacrificed to get what he wanted only made me feel more inferior. He knew what he wanted; I did not know what I wanted.
The realization that my effort was not enough crushed me, and I didn't recover from it - at least for the last semester. I ended up falling short of the grade I wanted despite being agonizingly close. And it did take a toll on me. I learnt a valuable lesson that hard work will always beat talent any day, and that I'm not the most intelligent dude in the world. My ego was shredded into pieces, I learnt humility. Since then, I've approached every project with an open mind and a realization that I have to work hard. It helped me in subsequent courses I've partook in afterwards.
In all, I felt inferior to another person for just one moment, and that moment wriggled away from me those nasty attitudes I've unknowingly carried all along. I guess feeling inferior isn't that bad. Afterall, we all live in a stratified world.
