Quiet Clarity is a 2x/week letter exploring the balance between ambition and awareness.
I love this quote from Maya Angelou.
Because it’s exactly what I went through when I was younger.
Through high school and college, I had a superiority complex I didn’t even realize. I wanted to be the cool guy—the one everyone looked up to. But the harder I tried, the more I became the opposite: someone people didn’t want to be around.
I’d give advice no one asked for. Trying to prove people wrong and always needing to be right. And in the process, I pushed away the most genuine people who tried to love me for who I was and not who I performed to be.
But life humbles you.
A few years later, the people I tried so hard to impress moved on. And I was left alone with myself. And that’s when I realized I didn’t even know who that was.
When we’re young, we think standing out means being better. Superiority feels like strength. But then you start losing genuine connection.
If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of someone’s superiority, your hurt is valid. You deserved better. And if you’ve been the one acting superior, I hope you catch it earlier than I did. Because your worth isn’t built on being above others. It’s built on how present you can be with everyone and everything around you.
Your worth exists simply because you exist. Tie it to superiority, and life will humble you through failure, loss, or watching someone you once looked down on surpass you.
And the same goes for inferiority. Maybe you’re comparing yourself to others right now, wondering why you can’t be like them. But you’re not less than anyone. You have gifts you can’t always see like your kindness, loyalty, or strength.
So if not superior or inferior, then what?
There’s another path.
You can still build, grow, and achieve—without labeling yourself at all. And it’s not easy. That voice of comparison doesn’t disappear overnight. But when you stop listening to it and start becoming more present, something shifts.
You begin to find work that lights you up. Because now, you’re choosing it from a state of presence rather than proving. For me, that’s been creating and sharing content where I speak from experience instead of trying to lecture.
And when you live that way, your days get steadier. You stop needing to prove anything and you start to feel quietly fulfilled.
See, maybe if we stopped trying to be above or below each other, we could finally stand beside each other.
And maybe that’s what it’s always been about.
From Amma’s Hand
From Nanna’s Voice
