Note: I wrote this somewhere else in May 2021, and I just got around to posting it here.

No matter who you are, in your life, there's always someone who's plainly better than you. No matter how hard you try, no matter how deliberately you plan, they're just smarter, faster, better, stronger. Whatever it is you do, they've been doing it longer - they grew up surrounded by exactly what they needed to excel at it. Their biological hardware is just better for it in every single way. It seems as if just by instinct, they can waltz through hell and enjoy every second of it, as if they've inherited several thousands of years worth of wisdom, skin as tough as diamonds, and the stature of a titan - as if they're a fierce and magnificent dragon, and you're just a cute, foolish little human.

Whether they're your friend, teammate, or competition, chances are they're in your life. And without fail, they outperform you - always have, always will. And without a doubt, at some point you've thought something along the lines of:

If someone like that exists, why should I ever bother doing anything big and impactful? Why should I bother trying to pursue fame, fortune, opportunity, dreams or really anything at all? Without a doubt resources would be put to far better use by them, and it'd be better for everyone in the end if I just accept my irrelevance, take a seat on the sidelines and watch them make exploit after exploit, solve one giant problem after another.

Okay, I know that's an exaggeration. They definitely struggle, probably more than you can imagine. Even more likely, they too have someone like this in their life. Nonetheless, it's depressing as fuck, isn't it? I sure think so. I go down this train of thought more often than I'd admit - and every time I recognize the fact that, no matter how hard I will myself into the delusion that I'll "catch up" if I try hard enough, no matter how many tears are shed by every cell of my body in a dreary unison, the thought that they will always accomplish "more" remains.

But surely these are the thoughts of an egomaniac who determines their self-worth through meritocracy right? Surely it's not my fault I don't do much of anything, is it? Surely it's meritocracy and capitalism's fault, no?

Well, yes and no. You can't realy argue with the fact that the minority of people who do the most stuff provide a majority of the value to society. If you don't do stuff, you're not changing anything, and you don't, well, make the world a better place to live in. Free markets and meritocracy are the best mechanism we've been able to employ at scale for maximizing the amount of cool stuff that happens. Though that doesn't necessarily mean meritocracy and markets are the best in general, they're better than anything else we've tried by a large margin.

The biggest drawback - meritocracy requires that some people are chosen over others. If humans were perfectly rational, I'm not sure this would have any problems at all. But unforunately this is far from reality.

Self-esteem is so important, and study after study after study has consistently shown that people who believe they aren't capable of doing a thing won't do it, even if they tried. But meritocracy's constant search for the best of the best has a tendency to instill this belief in those who aren't chosen, especially those who consistently aren't chosen - which happens to be the large majority of people. What's more, we're most subject to meritocracy when we're children - exactly when we're most vulnerable to becoming of the mind that we aren't valuable to society. By the time we've reached junior high school as adolescents, we pretty much already know who's a dragon and who's not. We know who gets straight A's and who doesn't. We know who won our school new hardware on the field, and who didn't. And while it's not really all that rational to do so, it's almost kind of expected that the people who consistently are never chosen don't feel valued - the spark of curiosity and adventure that they probably had when they are younger has been utterly crushed - they're just going to live their life, doing their own thing in the wings while the dragons dance in battle.

The irony in all this, is if the rest of us cared, steeled our resolve, and underwent labors of our own, then we'd be far better off than if we had just consigned ourselves to the wings, watching the creme de la creme share the future. More cool stuff would happen. A lot more, in fact. Perhaps even more ironically, I, the person writing this article, probably seem like a dragon to many people. And I bet that's true of you, the majestic fire-breathing hero reading this, as well.

So what's the solution? I have no fucking clue, I'm just some rando on the internet with toxic thoughts to diffuse - ask a dragon instead. But if I'm the dragon you're asking, I suggest you (easier said than done) try to focus on creating value by doing what you can do and becoming as good at it as you can. "Smart", "fast", "strong", "excellent", and "valuable" are not things you are, but things you do. Don't slay, villainize, or surrender to the dragons - stand shoulder to shoulder with them and win the battle that's unfolding before your very eyes, right here, and right now.