Chip

The Dangerous Chip On My Shoulder

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I met Jack on a bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara. He was a fellow traveler and climber headed into the Himalayan Annapurnas, where we would go our separate ways on unassisted treks.

We were transparent with each other almost immediately, and the conversation went deep. The connection surprised us both. We spent the day talking about why he had come to Nepal and the soul-seeking journey he was on.

He was being considered to lead a new startup, an opportunity that could change the course of his life. At 40, he was wrestling with whether the opportunity aligned with who he was and how he wanted to live.

He had already secured a difficult-to-obtain visa to Tibet and was headed there after the Annapurnas on a solo spiritual vision quest to find his answer.

I listened and asked the questions that came to me. Jack was already deep inside his own self-inquiry, searching for an answer only he could find.

Jack left to begin his trek in the Annapurnas, and I began mine the following morning. We agreed to reconnect in Pokhara if the timing worked out.

After our treks, Jack and I reconnected in Pokhara and walked to Fewa Lake, swapping stories about our experiences in the mountains.

Jack told me he had decided not to go to Tibet. He had already found the answer he was seeking in the Himalayas.

He told me our conversations, including the questions I’d asked, had helped him reach that answer.

I was genuinely happy for him.

Then the conversation took a turn.

People had underestimated Jack. He talked about becoming highly successful, proving them wrong and being right. He wanted to stick it to the man. The revenge in it surprised me.

I inwardly groaned.

I recognized that chip on his shoulder because I’d spent decades building my own.

“Trying to be right and prove other people wrong was a fruitless path,” I admitted to him. He was hell-bent on proving otherwise.

Nothing I said was going to change his mind.

My first chips formed in childhood, when being bullied made me determined to prove my own worth.

Those chips multiplied through boyfriends, husbands and betrayals that made me want to prove my value and make someone regret ever rejecting or underestimating me.

For a long time, I mistook all those chips for armor.

There was drive in those chips. Tenacity. A determination to accomplish things, to keep going, to prove that I could. The armor worked.

Success eventually showed me exactly what all that proving could—and could not—do.

When I became successful in real estate, some of the people who had doubted or underestimated me came back around. A few suddenly acted as though they had believed in me all along. I knew better.

By then, I had more than enough success to prove whatever I thought needed proving.

None of it satiated what I had been seeking all those years.

I held entire trials in my head, replaying what someone had said or done to prove I was right and they were wrong. I prosecuted absent defendants long after the conflict was over.

I competed with people who had no idea they were in a competition. I was already winning with things I hadn’t even done yet.

My current mentor once said, “Needing to be right is a fool’s endeavor,” and I laughed out loud at the recognition. I had spent decades doing exactly that.

Every time I tried to prove someone no longer had power over me, I was giving it right back to them.

They didn’t have to participate or even know it was happening. I could keep the entire dynamic alive without them.

Near the end of our conversation, Jack revealed he wasn’t confident he could communicate his value to the people considering him for the leadership position.

He wanted to prove his value to everyone who had underestimated him, yet struggled to demonstrate it here.

I knew that territory.

Rejection and betrayal sometimes made me want more than healing. I wanted vindication.

My revenge fantasies were vividly detailed. The people who hurt me would eventually see my value and regret their choices. My success would become undeniable proof that they had been wrong about me.

And if that realization salted an old wound for them, good.

For years, being criticized, rejected or betrayed triggered the same response: You don’t know me. You have no idea who I am. I’ll prove it.

But every time I tried to prove them wrong, I gave their judgment authority it never deserved.

They never had my worth.

Before we parted, I wrote Jack a letter of recommendation, telling his future employers what I had seen in him. He later told me the letter touched him deeply.

At 49, I know my own worth.

It took me nearly five decades.

My visions are expansive. Creating them doesn’t require anyone else to lose.

For decades, I thought proving people wrong would prove me right.

I don’t need the verdict anymore.

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