Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

May 21, 2024

Your worth is not linked to your score on an online platform like LeetCode

Filed under: My Thoughts — Suramya @ 9:23 AM

It is human nature to compare yourself to others even though it might not be the best idea, especially if you are in a relationship. People compare themselves to their partner’s ex’s and the time and I personally don’t understand why you would do that but that is just me. I mean there is a reason their ex is the ex rather than the current boyfriend/girlfriend. If your partner really liked their ex better they wouldn’t have broken up with them in the first place.

The following came up in my Mastodon feed and I am honestly flabbergasted. I don’t know what so say to someone whose entire sense of self worth is based on their Leetcode score of all things?? Seriously? This guy needs to go to therapy to understand why their worth is not linked to their score on an online platform.

I am jealous of my girlfriend's ex because he is better at Leetcode than me. 

When I was working on the daily challenge the other day, my girlfriend saw my screen and asked me if I was Leetcoding. I was surprised because she is an archeology major and doesn't know anything about programming. She explained that her ex-boyfriend was into competitive programming and talked about it all the time. Apparently he is a Guardian on Leetcode and he even used to prepare contest problems for extra money. I feel extremely insecure now because I struggle with mediums most of the time and my rating is at 1500. My gf keeps assuring me that my low rating doesn't bother her, but everytime I am stuck in a problem I keep thinking how her ex would solve it in minutes. I just can't get the image of him easily solving LC Hards out of my head. Every time he submits a solution and gets that green AC on his screen he must smile and think how much of a loser his airlfriend's new
“I am jealous of my girlfriend’s ex because he is better at Leetcode than me”

This might sound silly and something we can laugh about & ignore but there are larger implications of this kind of thinking. This person’s entire self-worth is based on their score, so what do you think they will do at work if someone is hired who is a better programmer than they are? They will gate-keep and block that person from performing their work efficiently. If they are in a position where they can impact hiring decisions it is quite possible they would attempt to prevent people who are better than them from getting hired in the first place. In open source communities these kind of folks will prevent new people from joining the project because the new joiner might be better than them at coding. Instead of learning from the new person they would create walls and gates to prevent folks better than them from joining.

Unfortunately for them and the projects they are part of, most people would be better than them in coding because a person with this kind of mentality is not someone open to learning new things and better ways of doing stuff. They would be stuck in their ‘idea’ world’ where they are the best and that is not a recipe to improve. As the famous quote goes “If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room“.

Long story short, you need to stop comparing yourself to others. Of course it is good to have healthy competition but feeling like a looser because your Leetcode score is lower is just plain silly.

What do you think?

– Suramya

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