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Comment by mablopoule | Hacker News Reader

You just need to meet someone like that, they are rare but they exists. It doesn't means that they are good at everything, just that they are better than you in every way.

I had a colleague like that. She was super nice, super smart, very good looking, was well-balanced emotionally, and dated a professional athlete. The kind of person who has a very good career, and then train for the marathon on the weekend. Even her name sounded cool.

I know it sounds like jealousy, it isn't, I'm honestly happy for her, but it's just a reminder that sometime people can be more advanced than you, and that you shouldn't place your self-worth only by measuring yourself with others, cause people like John Urschel[1] do exists.

[1] An up-and-coming american football player who abandoned his career at the NFL to focus on his PhD in Mathematics at MIT.

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>Even her name sounded cool.

I don't know why, but I found this hilarious. Was her name "Max Power"?

> just that they are better than you in every way.

Nope, I have never once met a person like that and am confident I never will. OK, so John Urschel plays football and is great at math. Are you telling me he is also a particle physicist, a statesman, a mountain man, a mob boss, and an astronaut? If not how is he good at “everything”?

Wait so you are a particle physicist, a statesman, a mountain man, a mob boss, and an astronaut?

Stop thinking global maxima (everyone in the world) and start thinking local maxima (you) and I promise there is someone that beats every local (you) metric you have.

Nope. There is no one that beats me at every metric I have. Does anyone know my family as well as I do? No. Does anyone know my staff as well as I do? No. Does anyone maintain my house as well as I do? No.

It is a painful admission, but in this world there are many people who are close to their families, close to their staff, keep a great house... and know technology better than you and have more impactful jobs that you and do more to improve the world and made more money than you and are loved (or at least needed) by more people than you.

There is nothing wrong with that. But it is a fallacy to expect that by some cosmic balance, it's impossible for anyone to best you along all meaningful categories.

It's probably easier to reason about this in the other direction (which is kinder on our egos): Do you believe that there is some individual on this planet who reads less than you, is lazy compared to you, treats their family and friends worse than you, contributes less to the world than you... and where at the end of the day, there's not any axis where they exceed you?

But there is someone who knows THEIR own family better than you know YOUR own family, they know their staff better than you know your staff, and they maintain their house better than you maintain your house. Again, at the metrics you care about, whatever they may be, there is someone better.

Of course you are the "best" version of you, but there is only one of you, that's not the point.

That is a bit of a reach. You are defining the categories very narrowly.

If instead of saying “knows your family” it would be more natural to compare how well you know your family with how well they know their own family. Similarly about their own coworkers and their own house.

But of course you can define the categories that narrowly. In which case you are simply not talking about the same thing others are, and you are willfull missunderstanding their point.

Also, good luck being the best in your own private game. I hope it makes you happy.

Assuming you're all of those, then one day you might meet someone younger than you who does all of these a bit better than you, and also is good at piano. And he or she will be nice and graceful about it, too, so you won't even be able to hate on them.

It's not a personal attack against you, it can happen to (almost) everyone :D.

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