Okay, at work I was surrounded by tons of people who were bigots. They would randomly say how they didn't want free college because then who would serve at restaurants, while they would say that they care about the environment. They would casually say that the confederate flag was not a big deal. They would casually comment on how they didn't have any black people in their schools when I sat down at the table. Whenever I sat down they would complain on how men salaries are higher than women, which I would have agreed on if it was not for the fact that the only people always discussing this was middle class white people, who only said this when I black man sat down, and statistically black people make the lowest salaries, so to me it felt like if someone from a buffet came to only complain to starving people that the next person at the buffet got more food than they did.
They made fun of my Mexican coworker who once got mistaken by the guy who was painting the stairs because he was Mexican. And many other microaggressions that are too numerous to tell.
But going to the point of my question: These people were pure asses, but they were brilliant at programming. They did so much better than me, and I was trying my best. It bothered me so much not just because their performance was better, but that they were bigots and their performance was better. It just felt like universal injustice. Made me wonder what was the point of trying if all your effort can just be surpassed by bigots.
I have to admit that I was pretty ignorant of corporate American culture, and had no idea what area I wanted to concentrate on. But somehow these people just knew all that shit. Like, I have no clue how they knew so much.
Which makes me wonder how do you deal with this feeling, and what gives you the motivation to keep trying, when even your best effort can be surpassed by people with terrible attitudes that you hate. Like, I know that I will never surpass people like that, and I don't think the point of life is being in an endless scoreboard, but it literally just feels like pure ass, and I want to hear others experiences. I also hate feeling behind all the time.
You seem very sure that they're actually better than you.
You may be experiencing a mixture of many things: insecurity about yourself which makes it seem to you like others' work is better (changing room syndrome), bias in favour of stereotypically privileged individuals (neurotypical, business-oriented, "confident" white male)...
In my experience, most people with whom you have a conversation about work, have a degree of impostor's syndrome, and believe they underperforming when in reality it's not true. So first of all, consider whether that's the case. I'm sure I'm not the first to tell you, and I know it's hard to listen, but please make an effort.