My Low Self-Confidence Impacts My Social Ability

Yeah hi nam hello Sonim and I really appreciate this opportunity to ask you a question especially in this time of turmoil in the world.
My question is somewhat personal, but I have some confidence issues because of that I tend to be in awe of people who are in superior positions or who have some superior ability and I am intimidated by them.

As an example, I play tennis at 3 point zero level so I avoid introducing myself to superior players say people at four point zero level or five point zero level players.
So this prevents me from developing some friendships at tennis courts more seriously.
At work, I avoid approaching senior engineers or having conversations with them.
So this affects my visibility in the organization for example, it can affect what projects I'm assigned to.

So I hope I did not speak too fast but it's kind of a self help question.
And I was curious if you have any thoughts

the confidence is a metric to measure a self affirmation of a self ability of some sort but it's not a absolute metric.
It's always relative. The measurement is relative.

So what I'm saying is that we compare ourselves to others so that we are either superior or inferior to others.

Let's say you are 180 centimeters tall

then the question becomes is he a tall person or a short person?

Well, he's short compared to a person who is 1 point 9 meters tall

but it's tall compared to somebody else who's 1 point 7 meters tall.

Then the question becomes once again, is this a tall person or a short person?

Then we can rightfully say this person is neither tall nor small.
Then what kind of person is he?
It is just him.

But when we have to express something, we express whether he's small or short or tall as a result of our perception as compared to a reference point.

But what our brain does it tends to mistake a subjective measurement like that, a subjective comparison like that.
If we persist in that subjective comparison, our brain makes a mistake of thinking that's an objective criteria.

For example, if you spent many years living with somebody who's 1.9 meters tall instead of knowing recognizing that you are short in comparison to that person, you have made the mistake into thinking that that's an objective judgment about your stature

because of this bug in our cognition you know, sometimes we developed a sense of inferiority or a sense of superiority

and a lot of us carry around a lot of, you know, inferior complex.

And that's because ever since we're little, we actually are used to comparing ourselves to those who are taller who studies better, who gets better grades who is better tennis player because we want to get better.
We are used to comparing ourselves to those who are better.

For example, we don't compare ourselves to one person right?
If we compare to one person who's taller but we might do better in studies or who is better in studies, but we might be better in tennis for example.
No, we choose those people who are actually better than us in all different aspects of our lives and we find ourselves lacking because we have chosen reference points that are actually better.

The first thing that I want to kind of emphasize is that it's a bug in our, how we conceive or, you know ourselves you know, because we're constantly comparing ourselves to others it is a relative measure.
However,

the second is what's valuable to me

for example, this money is valuable to me

well, then if we face ourselves with somebody who's much wealthier than we are, then we feel a little inferior.

But if we've encountered somebody who is actually less wealthy well off than we are, we tend to be a little arrogant.

However, if titles or position is what's important,

then when we encounter somebody in a higher position than me, we feel a little inferior.

But then we tend to thumb our nose at those people who are actually in a lower position than we are.

However, if you just take an example of those areas that you have no interest in for example, the game of go or chess or riding a bicycle in those areas where you have no interests, then just because somebody does better or is a, you know, superior in those areas, you don't feel jealous or obsequious just because the other person is good at that.

Yes so that tells us that in those areas in which you feel a lack of confidence or inferior, that tells you that those are the areas or specific things that you feel is important to you, that you find is important to you.
In other words, that you are actually attaching, creating attachment to those areas.

The two things that feed into this, that feed into this larger equation of confidence is all right which areas do you imbue more value?
What are more important to you?
That's one. The other one is mistaking was a relative measurement into an objective judgment.
So that combined gives you a sense of either superiority or inferiority.

For example, I don't know the first thing about tennis.
So if somebody says, you know it's really good at tennis or it's really bad at tennis, I don't develop any sense of superiority or inferiority about tennis.

So you can use this to self diagnosis yourself.
So basically when you feel as if you know you're feeling lack of confidence or you're feeling diffident in approaching something, you know that that's the area that you are actually imbuing with a sense of value to yourself that you are obsessing over that.

Then you can resolve this easily by letting all go of that attachment.

The second is if you feel a certain sense of intimidation over a certain thing, then you know that you are making that cognitive mistake of thinking what is a relative measurement something into an objective judgment about yourself

so basically what the teaching here is that a being is just a being.
It just is however, when we perceive it in its different context, we sometimes perceive it to be better or worse and that leads to some kind of sense of intimidation or superiority or inferiority.

So another example is when we dream, when we go to sleep at night and we dream

and a robber or a mugger is after us in the stream and we are running away.

So objectively you are relaxed in the comfort of your own beds but subjectively from a perception perspective, you're running away from a mugger.

So the subjective reality is that your perceived subjective reality is that you are running away from a mugger.
Your objective reality, you're sleeping in your own bed.

So in the subjective perception, the only solution you have is to keep running or hide from the mugger.
However, in the objective reality, all you have to do is wake up.

So in that sense, a spiritual practice is not about being protected of running away from a situation it's waking up.

So if you want to solve your sense of lack of confidence by getting better at tennis, making more money or getting better projects, it's the same thing as you trying to solve your dream by running away further or trying to hide in somewhere.
So the mugger doesn't catch you.

But if you want to solve this in your dream, then no matter how far you run or how fast or how much you hide, the mugger is still lurking.

So if you want to solve this problem in this current reality, you have to find through your perception is that the better you get tennis, there'll be better players than you have to go up against.
So it's always going to be better.
The better projects you get, the higher you get on the engineering career ladder.
There will be other projects that are actually more visible.

So trying to solve this in this current kind of paradigm, you have to develop for yourself.
It'll be endless before you can solve it

or you can choose to wake up and open your eyes and that's what we call it.
Why we call it enlightenment

by letting off that attachment by realizing this is a relative comparison that you're imposing upon yourself by knowing that you have imbued a certain areas of your life with that value with that attachment that's driving you.

But just because you intellectually understand what I'm saying doesn't mean you have internalized.
It doesn't mean you have experienced it yourself.

And when I say you haven't internalized yet, that means that you might have understood this.
But if you all of a sudden tomorrow you show up and you encounter that senior engineer, you'll be intimidated again.

That's why you need practice.
So every time you get intimidated or you feel shy or feel shying away, realize and remind yourself this is like a dream

it's a practice of being awake and if you keep on practicing, you get better.