Interpersonal Tensions

The Fallacy of Equality

The modern world loves to romanticize sympathy to the point of enabling. You’ll be told that you’re enough as you are. That you’re perfect, deserving, and complete by virtue of existing. That you’re owed the same opportunities, responsibilities, and privileges as everyone else, no matter your choices, character, or reputation. That love for humanity can and should be extended unconditionally, even without knowing a single thing about the people you’re professing to care for.

But that isn’t how people work. It isn’t how the world works. And it’s not how you survive or thrive.

You are not perfect. You never will be. And that’s not a flaw. Because in a world built on contradiction and competing incentives, growth isn’t a luxury. It’s an obligation. And anyone telling you otherwise is either naive, self-serving, or lying.

The Lie of Unconditional Value

You were born with inherent worth, yes, but the worth you begin with isn’t the worth you’ll carry into the world. Society, by necessity for functionality, makes distinctions. Between capable and incapable. Between reliable and unreliable. Between those who can bear weight and those who expect to be carried. Between those who are useful in poor conditions and those who wait for good ones.

You are not owed the same rewards as someone who has paid a higher price for them. You are not equally entitled to every choice, every opportunity, or every responsibility simply because you exist. The idea that everyone deserves identical outcomes is comforting, but a world without distinctions is a world without merit, without consequence, and without accountability. And such a world would inevitably collapse from its own refusal to demand anything of anyone.

While their intentions might be noble, the people who insist you’re enough as you are often aren’t invested in your actual wellbeing or growth, they’re invested in preserving comfort, either yours or theirs. Telling someone they’re already enough often sounds supportive, but it discourages growth. It soothes rather than supports. If you accept that no change is needed, you’re less likely to question roles, push boundaries, or pursue growth. And that serves those who want to keep things predictable, whether for your comfort or theirs. Growth, by its nature, disrupts hierarchies. It demonstrates and demands adaptation while forcing others to confront their own growth, and many would rather stay still and keep things the same.

Sympathy Is Not A Solution

You don’t solve hardship with sympathy. You don’t fix systemic problems by making people feel better about being stuck inside them. You don’t heal wounds by pretending they don’t matter. You don’t tell someone wasting their potential that it’s okay to stop trying because “they’re enough” or that they “deserve better.”

There’s a difference between compassion and enabling. Compassion says: “I see where you are. I can help. Let’s move forward together.” It acknowledges struggle without glorifying it, offers support without removing responsibility, and recognizes that dignity is preserved not by rewarding weakness but by helping a person rise, not escape, from it. Enabling says: “Stay where you are. It’s fine. You never have to be more.” It pretends to be kindness but indirectly steals a person’s capacity for growth, rewarding their stillness and protecting them from the discomfort required to grow. One preserves agency, the other erodes it. The former builds civilizations, the latter keeps people drowning in their own stagnation.

Unfortunately, no matter how good your intentions, you cannot carry anyone who refuses to move. And when you leave your hand extended too long, people get used to grabbing onto it. They stop developing the muscles they’ll need to survive without you. Every gesture of kindness becomes an expectation. Every request becomes a requirement. Every inch you carry someone else erodes their responsibility to walk their own path. This is why extreme selflessness is not just self destructive, but also inconsiderate, even if noble in intention.

If you truly care about someone, you don’t lie to them about their deficiencies. You don’t tell them their bad habits are harmless, that their failures aren’t their fault, or that their stagnation is a form of peace. You tell them the truth. Not because it’s easy, but because that’s what it means to truly support somebody.

Myths

One of the most corrosive myths in modern culture is the belief that everyone deserves the same choices, responsibilities, and opportunities.

They don’t. Not because people are born unequal in worth, but because their worth diverges through action, intention, discipline, and reputation. A person who prepares deserves more opportunity than one who does not. A person who takes responsibility deserves more freedom than one who avoids it. A person who acts under pressure deserves more trust than one who collapses in calm. A person who creates solutions deserves more resources than one who only points out problems. A person who holds themselves accountable deserves more loyalty than one who keeps pointing fingers. A person who sharpens their mind, betters their character, and strengthens their resilience deserves to wield more influence than one who coasts. And the list goes on and on and on. This is what it actually means to truly deserve anything.

Your potential and reputation determines what is entitled to you. And pretending otherwise doesn’t create fairness, it creates excused fragility and incompetence.

Systems that fail to reward competence die. Systems that reward weakness collapse. And individuals who refuse to grow become burdens, not allies. Some people’s choices disqualify them from certain privileges. Not because they lack inherent worth, but because they’ve chosen to neglect what was entrusted to them. That includes their past choices.

Additionally, one of the most dangerous things you can be told is that you’re loved by people who have never met you. Because what they love isn’t you, but their projection, their ideal, their story about you. And the minute you step outside of it, the minute you assert your individuality and authenticity over an assumption you didn’t ask for, their affection recedes instantly. Furthermore, this is the same situation as telling someone you’ve never met that they’re perfect: it feels moral and virtuous despite it actually being counterproductive.

Real love, strong loyalty, and deserved respect require knowledge of your strengths, weaknesses, past, and potential. Anyone who claims to love you without knowing what you’re made of is either lying to you or lying to themselves. Easy love asks nothing of you, and any love that asks nothing is worth nothing.

Systemic Equality

In the first world, there’s a larger, systemic dimension to this problem as well, one our culture has spent the last handful of decades overcorrecting into absurdity. In the name of inclusion, we’ve built entire industries around identity, elevating diversity over competence, and manufacturing artificial hierarchies of virtue based not on capacity or character, but appearance and affiliation. We tell people they can be whatever they want without establishing any consensus about what is reasonable, useful, or sane, and cheer for them every step of the way. Again, this is the difference between compassion and enabling: compassion helps create something better, enabling celebrates whatever’s easiest.

As a result, qualification has become subordinate to identity. Institutions make decisions not on who is best equipped to carry responsibility, but on who checks more diversity boxes. Worse, we’ve created a perpetual culture of debate around problems we already solved, pretending as though inclusion is still an unfulfilled promise, when in reality it has been absorbed into our cultural architecture, proven by the fact that we have overabsorbed it, creating the same problems that used to exist, just now in the opposite direction, albeit not as extreme. Exceptions will always remain, but by now, the culture of inclusion has gone too far and needs to be pulled back a bit.

There is no virtue in giving anyone preferential treatment because of how they look or what they identify as, because establishing that arbitrary hierarchy means that others will suffer for the same, baseless reason, regardless of their qualifications or character, which is ridiculously incompetent and absurdly unfair. The line must be drawn somewhere. It is only practical to have that line exist primarily within competence and ability, regardless of identity. But we are again too focused on arbitrary and abstract hierarchies to determine who gets what. That’s not fair, it’s still delusion, just wearing a different hat.

And yet, we maintain the conversation because it grants attention, leverage, and a sense of morality to people who would rather argue about imaginary obstacles than confront their own growth. In privileging identity over merit, we don’t achieve justice or fairness, we simply trade one manufactured imbalance for another, and call it progress.

The systemic angle is complicated and there are a lot of factors at play. But regardless, in order for society, institutions, and people to function and improve, we must place competence over diversity. This does not imply segregation as many would speculate or jump to, but rather enforces that people meet their required qualifications, regardless of who they are. You don’t solve hardship with sympathy. You don’t fix systemic problems by making people feel better about being stuck inside them. And you don’t give people roles they don’t deserve just because it makes your diversity statistics look better. No matter what, bias will always remain, but through qualification, potential, and reputation, we can actually enforce true, legible fairness. Equality is not the same as equity. The latter is fair, the former is irrational.

Growth And Belonging

You will be tempted to believe you’ve done enough. That you’ve learned enough. That you’ve suffered enough. That you’ve arrived. But the world doesn’t care about what you think you deserve, it responds to what you prove you deserve. More often than not.

And proof, in practical terms, is growth. Not perfection, not invulnerability, but continuously learning, applying, and demonstrating your ability to do what is required of you. Growth directly increases your potential, improves your reputation, and adds to your qualifications. Yet it also refines what you once believed, pushes you to outgrow what once comforted you, encourages shedding attachments that no longer serve you, and makes you face the fact that parts of you are unfit for the life you claim to want.

You cannot ask for extraordinary outcomes while maintaining ordinary habits. You cannot demand high-level relationships while operating at a low-level capacity. You cannot claim wisdom while refusing to question or apply your assumptions. You cannot lead others while refusing to lead yourself. You cannot demand loyalty while offering none.

The world isn’t static, and neither are you. You are either growing, stagnating, or decaying. There is no in between and there is no equilibrium. The moment you settle is the moment you start falling behind. And in some cases, that’s okay, but you still must be aware of it.

Growth is not optional if you intend to achieve and/or belong in any meaningful way. The people worth keeping in your life are not the ones who celebrate your mediocrity. They’re the ones who demand your evolution, but not ruthlessly. Who confront your blind spots with respect. Who challenge your laziness by reminding you of your potential. Who hold you to your own highest standard because that’s both what you and they want.

And you must do the same for them. Not because perfection is possible, but because improvement and growth is necessary.

If you want relationships worth having, build them with people who are growing. Who are refining. Who will not let you remain the version of yourself you were six months ago. Who will not apologize for pushing you to keep pace.

The people who truly matter will grow with you or at least respectfully push you to keep going. The people who are full of shit are the ones who tell you that you don’t need to grow.

Helping Without Enabling

You are allowed to help others. You should, when you can, and when it doesn’t significantly compromise your own growth. But you cannot lie to them about where they are, what they’re doing, or what the consequences of their choices will be.

People must grow on their own. You can offer a hand, a word of clarity, a resource, a relief. But you cannot live their growth for them. And if you extend your hand too long—if you carry someone who refuses to carry themselves—you become complicit in their decline.

Love without honesty is negligence. Assistance without conditions is irresponsible. And constant rescue is the most efficient way to rob someone of both dignity and progress.

Growth belongs to each person individually. And though it is merciful to offer aid, it is cruel to insist that aid is a substitute for their own effort.

The Price of Progress

The price of progress is that you often must sacrifice comfort. To grow is to overcome or at least gain agency what you once struggled with, which requires stepping into the unknown.

This may be a hard pill for some to swallow and you may be tempted to write me off entirely. You may be tempted to cast me as an asshole who doesn’t understand the slightest bit about the human condition. You may be tempted to defend what you believe is morally obligated. And that’s okay. I’m not perfect, and neither is my perspective. But none of this changes the fact that you are not perfect either. You never will be. Nobody ever will be. And that’s the point.

Not because you should endlessly loathe yourself, or because you need to become someone else’s version of “better,” but because growing is the work of staying alive and thriving in any meaningful sense.

You don’t owe anyone your stagnation. And you don’t solve human problems with sympathy and empty affection. You solve them by confronting yourself, outgrowing what weakens you, and offering others the same difficult but essential clarity.

The work is not optional. The alternative is always decay. At the very least, stop lying to others about it.