False superiority

Yesterday, in a group conversation, someone said, “This person doesn’t like the way you trainees behave. They’re naive and don’t understand how real life works.” Everyone laughed and looked at me, because I’m a trainee.

When someone talks down to another person, they’re rarely making a point. They’re trying to feel bigger. If you’re naive, I must be wise. If you don’t understand real life, I must. The other person becomes the step they stand on.

But that superiority is false. It doesn’t come from anything they’ve built, learned or achieved. It exists only as long as someone else stays below them. That isn’t confidence. It’s a fragile ego doing the work.

Once you notice it, you see it everywhere. The colleague who corrects you in front of everyone just to be heard. The senior who brushes off your idea with “you’ll learn.” The friend who turns your excitement into a joke. In small moments every day, someone feels a little taller by making someone else feel a little smaller.

The harder part is catching it in ourselves. It’s easy to spot in others and easy to miss in our own conversations.

People who are genuinely secure don’t need anyone beneath them. They can let others be new, be wrong and still be learning, without pointing it out.

That’s what I want to practice: being aware enough to catch the urge to belittle someone, and secure enough not to need it.