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Imho the entire problem is -and should be- yours. If you feel that such people take jobs/fame/complements away from you, you should work on your expression of c

Imho the entire problem is -and should be- yours. If you feel that such people take jobs/fame/complements away from you, you should work on your expression of confidence. Because logically, these what you call "over confident" people get stuff done and get praise (or you wouldn't be jealous of them!) Yes, you are jealous of the success which you think is undeserved. But that is an opinion. Nobody needs a smart person that never opens their mouth at the right time or that doesn't offer their services or is unclear about what they can do. You are obviously an introvert, so this will be hard for you, at first. But you are going to have to grow a pair and either offer your skills to people looking for them and prove you are better than the other person or learn to not feel annoyed by it. As you say, you ignore the situation and you focus on your work, ask yourself: Why? What will this behavior bring you? How could you alter that behavior to feel less frustration in such situations? You want change. You are going to have to deeply realize that the only factor you can change in this world, is yourself. Change your behaviour and you change the status quo. Keep being frustrated and you end up with the status quo: frustration... until it breaks you. Start by seeing (and naming, writing down even!) the merits of the behaviors that you seem to hate so much. It is also (mainly?) your metal connection between this behavior and the value you give it (you call it negative, it is not negative, it is nothing but a behaviour). You are going to have to unlearn this connection before you can start to apply it yourself (and receive the merits that come with the behaviour). This takes time and requires energy and constant awareness and honest reflection. What works for me is mantras. Short things I tell myself before entering a situation. For me it's things like: "Everybody here makes money, I'm not here for fun, be clear on the fact that you are going to want your hours paid if this negotiation turns into a set of tasks that you can pick up." Because I feel like the things I do are not worth a lot of money because I convince myself they are easy. But they usually are not, I'm just good at them (and I have to tell myself that as it doesn't come naturally to me.) And man, it took me 35 years to realize this ;). Don't underestimate these processes. Yes you are going to have to learn the subtle art of not giving a F (which -if you read the book- translates to giving a F* about only the right/useful things). I think that book is very valuable to people like you and me.

ab2771 9y ago
> Because logically, these what you call "over confident" people get stuff done and get praise (or you wouldn't be jealous of them!) This is a big (one might say overconfident :-) assumption. > Change your behaviour and you change the status quo. It isn't that easy. Join the overconfident club and some of your extremely solid and careful programming may be lost. Do you think Wiles/Perelman could just change their personalities and still be productive?
kevintb 9y ago
Read the description please > Furthermore, the same individuals tend to put down others who are more humble/less confident in their skills, directly or subtly. > It infuriates me when these individuals subtly bring down others, but I am unsure how to approach it - directly, indirectly, or just ignore it and focus on my own work and goals.
- teekert 9y ago
  "Subtly bringing down others" is also an opinion (it's probably not how they see it or how the person they communicate with sees it). But I don't care, blame it on others, try to change others, try to change the system. See how far you get, maybe it works for you. It doesn't work in my experience. Telling me to "read the description please" and focusing on the blaming part tells me you are only looking for solutions that suit you and your current feelings and current behaviour. Good luck with that. My words to you remain: You'll fail and you'll feel worse after trying. Look inside yourself. You use a lots of descriptive words and present them as truth, humble: maybe someone else would call it introverted, silent, diminished, weak? Why judge? Why put an emotional value on these behaviors at all? See them, think about them, adapt to them, learn, develop, overcome. Edit: I never care so much but I do wonder now who is voting me down while I'm taking the time to share insights I've gathered over the course of my life. If I'm wrong I would really like to know. The subject is very close and important to me.
  - rootlocus 9y ago
    > "Subtly bringing down others" is also an opinion (it's probably not how they see it or how the person they communicate with sees it). You're telling the OP you understand his situation better than he does and that everything is just his opinion. That's some blatant hypocrisy. To quote your original comment: > Because logically, these what you call "over confident" people get stuff done and get praise (or you wouldn't be jealous of them!) Yes, you are jealous of the success which you think is undeserved. There's nothing that supports that fact. How do you know they get stuff done? How do you know they get praise? And how in the world did you come to the conclusion that he's jealous of their success? You're simply masquerading false assumptions as psychological advice. At best you're attacking a straw man. You've build this fictive world in which the real, toxic, people are actually successful and worthy, but it's the OP who is too petty to acknowledge their true worth. But you're not talking about the reality. Worse, you're blaming the OP for not seeing the reality how your fiction is. At worst, you might be so absorbed in your fiction where everything wrong is just someone's opinion or useless emotion, that you might be toxic yourself. Just to be clear why I'm so aggressive with you, I have met toxic people, and I have felt being drained and put down by them. If you think these people do not exist, or don't mean harm, you're sorely mistaken. I can agree that they're being defensive, that they're actually afraid of being attacked so they attack first, but I can't agree with the fact that they don't exist or that it's my jealousness that hinders me from appreciating their worth.

ab2771 9y ago

> Because logically, these what you call "over confident" people get stuff done and get praise (or you wouldn't be jealous of them!) This is a big (one might say overconfident :-) assumption. > Change your behaviour and you change the status quo. It isn't that easy. Join the overconfident club and some of your extremely solid and careful programming may be lost. Do you think Wiles/Perelman could just change their personalities and still be productive?

kevintb 9y ago

Read the description please > Furthermore, the same individuals tend to put down others who are more humble/less confident in their skills, directly or subtly. > It infuriates me when these individuals subtly bring down others, but I am unsure how to approach it - directly, indirectly, or just ignore it and focus on my own work and goals.

teekert 9y ago
"Subtly bringing down others" is also an opinion (it's probably not how they see it or how the person they communicate with sees it). But I don't care, blame it on others, try to change others, try to change the system. See how far you get, maybe it works for you. It doesn't work in my experience. Telling me to "read the description please" and focusing on the blaming part tells me you are only looking for solutions that suit you and your current feelings and current behaviour. Good luck with that. My words to you remain: You'll fail and you'll feel worse after trying. Look inside yourself. You use a lots of descriptive words and present them as truth, humble: maybe someone else would call it introverted, silent, diminished, weak? Why judge? Why put an emotional value on these behaviors at all? See them, think about them, adapt to them, learn, develop, overcome. Edit: I never care so much but I do wonder now who is voting me down while I'm taking the time to share insights I've gathered over the course of my life. If I'm wrong I would really like to know. The subject is very close and important to me.
- rootlocus 9y ago
  > "Subtly bringing down others" is also an opinion (it's probably not how they see it or how the person they communicate with sees it). You're telling the OP you understand his situation better than he does and that everything is just his opinion. That's some blatant hypocrisy. To quote your original comment: > Because logically, these what you call "over confident" people get stuff done and get praise (or you wouldn't be jealous of them!) Yes, you are jealous of the success which you think is undeserved. There's nothing that supports that fact. How do you know they get stuff done? How do you know they get praise? And how in the world did you come to the conclusion that he's jealous of their success? You're simply masquerading false assumptions as psychological advice. At best you're attacking a straw man. You've build this fictive world in which the real, toxic, people are actually successful and worthy, but it's the OP who is too petty to acknowledge their true worth. But you're not talking about the reality. Worse, you're blaming the OP for not seeing the reality how your fiction is. At worst, you might be so absorbed in your fiction where everything wrong is just someone's opinion or useless emotion, that you might be toxic yourself. Just to be clear why I'm so aggressive with you, I have met toxic people, and I have felt being drained and put down by them. If you think these people do not exist, or don't mean harm, you're sorely mistaken. I can agree that they're being defensive, that they're actually afraid of being attacked so they attack first, but I can't agree with the fact that they don't exist or that it's my jealousness that hinders me from appreciating their worth.