How Harvard Gave Me an Inferiority Complex

To be fair, I had an inferiority complex before I got to Harvard.  I am, in all aspects of the stereotype, an unremarkable Asian: my piano skills are mediocre, my ability to comprehend math is atrocious, and my grades were the result of hard work rather than actual intellectual ability.  I was boringly middle class, but I thought I had everything I needed.

So naturally (quite obviously, in fact), with this attitude, it was fate that the all-powerful-freshmen-housing-coordinator just so happened to match me with the daughter of one of the richest and most powerful businessman in the world.  She had fantastic shoes and glamorous friends and a world that I can neither begin to judge nor comprehend.  She was put together, she was smart, she knew how to have fun, and she was everything that I was not.

Inferiority stemmed from that intimidation, and thus the list of Why I Am Not Good Enough was born:

1. Not intelligent enough
2. Not pretty enough
3. Not outgoing enough
4. Not funny enough
5. Not doing enough

The list goes on, but it all stemmed from the feeling of not being enough.  And maybe this is true; everything, after all, is relative.  I’m not as intelligent as the girl who cured cancer in high school or as the one who can arrow push like a boss in organic chemistry.  I’m not as pretty as the girl who currently models for Macy’s or any of the 15 Hottest Freshmen.  I’m not as outgoing as the guy who walks up to a random group of people and introduces himself, I’m not as funny as the guy in the improv group, and I’m not doing enough with this Harvard experience because I’m trying to become as “enough” as possible in this school where everyone is literally chosen for being the best.

Logic thus flows that you were also chosen for being the best.

And when it’s 3AM and you’re just going to bed after the longest pset of your life, it’s easy to forget about this past life where you were relatively the best.  It’s natural to want more; inferiority complexes are important.  Because this is how improvement happens.  This is how you know who you want to become.  This is how you start becoming a better person.  This is how you go from ‘unremarkable Asian’ to ‘slightly distinguished human being’.

Along the way, you just have to be sure to sit down and recognize that you’re some pretty hot shit.