One of Them

I guess what I was trying to say here is that when you start to work in the real world, you see people rewarded for the worst stuff. Things like overcompensation, cluelessness, aggression, shameless self-promotion and so on. This is especially true in Los Angeles. And when you see that happen, it’s easy to question the fairness of it all. What you have to remember that is you’re not refraining from those behaviors out of some “strategy.” You don’t decide to settle on integrity or humility because it will work out better.

The people that find rewards in these types of behavior have accepted a certain alchemy in their soul. They’ve traded in their self-awareness: if they were able to see themselves half as objectively as they saw others, they couldn’t live anymore. You could do this too if you wanted. In fact, it’d probably be easier. But you didn’t choose to not be insufferable after weighing the costs and benefits – it was simply not an option.

Written by Ryan Holiday
Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me, I’m Lying, The Obstacle Is The Way, Ego Is The Enemy, and other books about marketing, culture, and the human condition. His work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared everywhere from the Columbia Journalism Review to Fast Company. His company, Brass Check, has advised companies such as Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as Grammy Award winning musicians and some of the biggest authors in the world. He lives in Austin, Texas.