Introjects: What They Are and Why "Losers" Matter

If you feel like "everyone else is living better," it's almost never about your inadequacy.

Most often, it's about you viewing the world through distorted statistics and algorithms, not through reality.

Social media algorithms and the "success" industry show you the tip of the iceberg — a fraction of a percent of people — and quietly substitute this as the norm. Your brain doesn't see the full picture and draws the only possible conclusion:

"Something's wrong with me. I'm an exception. I'm falling behind."

No. You're not an exception. You're a normal person in an abnormal environment.

How They Make You "Defective" with 0.1% Sample

Imagine an experiment.

1. First, they show you only the brightest 0.1% of cases: the most beautiful, the richest, the most successful. 2. They don't show the remaining 99.9% at all. 3. Then they tell you: "Look, this is how everyone lives. What's wrong with you?"

Your brain evolved to compare yourself with a tribe of a few hundred people. The internet forces you to compare yourself with the best of 8 billion simultaneously.

The math here is very simple:

• you can't be richer, more beautiful, and more successful than everyone simultaneously;
• but your brain doesn't know this — it just sees the gap and launches an internal verdict: "I'm not enough. I'm worse. I'm falling behind."

Four Matrices: How Reality Gets Distorted

The "Successful IT Guy" Matrix

The Picture:

• "$300k per year,"
• "work 2 hours a day from Bali,"
• "dream life by 25."

The Reality:

• according to market surveys, the median global developer salary is about $60k per year;
• Senior with $150k+ income is the upper segment, reached through years of:
• difficult tasks,
• burnout,
• night studying,
• non-obvious failures.

Perception Error:

Most developers just calmly do their jobs. They don't run Telegram channels and don't record Reels about Bali.

You see extreme cases, but compare your normal life to them.

The Instagram Matrix

The Picture:

• constantly new countries,
• restaurants,
• gifts,
• brand bags.

The Reality:

• global median income is about $200–250 per month;
• if you earn $1000 per month, you're already in roughly the top 10–15% of the planet;
• a significant portion of people in developed countries can't cover a sudden $400 expense without going into debt.

Separate Fake Industry:

• studios decorated as private planes,
• rental of empty brand bags "for photos,"
• "bouquets for 15 minutes" for photoshoots.

Reality: many people with beautiful lives in stories don't exist and never did. There's a studio, rental, and debt.

Perception Error:

You're comparing your real life with carefully designed decorations.

The Freelance Matrix

The Picture:

• "$5000 logo,"
• "two projects per month — and freedom."

The Reality:

• most freelancers earn less than their office colleagues;
• add lack of social package, vacations, and predictability;
• on platforms like Upwork, median rates hover around $15–20 per hour with huge competition.

Perception Error:

Only successful cases make it to the feed. Freelancers who sit on small orders for years and burn out rarely write about this.

The Educational Matrix

The Picture:

• "Become a senior developer in 3 months";
• "If you're not a millionaire by 25, you're doing something wrong";
• "If your child isn't writing a startup at 10, they're falling behind."

The Reality:

• most people need several years just to understand who they are and what they want to do;
• real skills form through:
• repetition,
• mistakes,
• boring tasks,
• long cycles.

Perception Error:

They sell speed and ease as the norm, and the real learning process as "too slow" and "inefficient."

How This Looks Through Algorithms' Eyes

If you look at all this not through emotions but through a system, the picture becomes even clearer.

At the core of most platforms lies a simple goal:

Attention retention.

• A calm, content person:
• closes the app,
• goes about their business.
• An anxious, comparing-themselves-to-others person:
• scrolls longer,
• clicks more often,
• more eagerly buys "solutions."

The system learns from these signals. And chooses the behavior that best keeps you in the feed.

This isn't a conspiracy. It's a side effect of reward function optimization.

Introjects: Someone Else's Voice in Your Head

There's another layer — psychological.

An introject is someone else's installation that settles in your head as if it were your own.

Examples:

• "You're worthless without a car/apartment/foreign trips."
• "Normal people travel all the time."
• "If you haven't made it by 25, it's too late."

Where this comes from:

• family and environment,
• school and comparison culture,
• advertising and social media,
• "success stories" where debts, panic attacks, and mistakes are carefully cut out.

Over time, the introject starts sounding inside like your own voice:

"You must. You're obligated. You're worthless until you reach that picture."

How to Work with Introjects: The Knife of Consciousness

A simple protocol that can be used by both adults and teenagers:

1. Catch the accusatory phrase. For example: "I'm worthless without an expensive car." 2. Ask yourself: "Whose voice is this? When did I first hear this?" 3. Rephrase in your own words. Instead of "I must": "I can want comfort, but my value isn't measured by a car brand." 4. Fix and repeat. Write down the new formulation and read it aloud for several days in a row.

This way you separate someone else's voice from your own choice.

Cold Shower: Some Numbers Instead of Illusions

A few facts useful to remember next time your hand reaches for the feed:

• global median income is about $200–250 per month;
• if you steadily earn $1000 per month, you're already in a small upper segment of humanity;
• a significant portion of people in developed countries can't cover an unexpected $400 expense without debt;
• "living paycheck to paycheck" is a reality for many, including those who earn impressive sums on paper;
• a noticeable portion of bright "luxury life" pictures in social media is rented props and decorations, not everyday life.

These numbers don't devalue others' achievements. They return scale and norm to reality perception.

Why This Is Especially Dangerous for Children and Teenagers

An adult, at least theoretically, understands that "not everything is so clear-cut." A child doesn't.

If from early years a child is shown only:

• expensive gadgets as "baseline,"
• travel as "normal,"
• constant success without failures,

then any ordinary life will feel like a failure.

A connection forms:

"My parents are worse because we don't have it like on the internet." > > "I'm worse because I don't live like in a clip."

This is a path to shame about one's real life, rejection of one's own interests in favor of the "right picture," and loss of motivation to learn if the result isn't immediate and spectacular.

Therefore, the conversation about the success matrix isn't just about adult careerists. It's about the future of children we work with.

Antidote: Engineering Instead of Hallucinations

Why at Polaris do we bet on engineering disciplines and technical creativity?

Because:

• physics can't be persuaded: a formula is either correct or not;
• code can't be "photoshopped": a program either runs or falls with errors;
• a robot doesn't know how to pretend: it either follows the trajectory or crashes into a wall.

Engineering returns to that very reality that social networks and advertising constantly blur:

• complexity is normal;
• mistakes are part of the process, not a reason to declare yourself "incapable";
• progress is measured not by likes, but by what you can actually do.

We don't promise "a profession in 3 months" and "a million by 25." We teach thinking, building systems, and completing complex projects.

Education as an Exit from the Matrix

The educational matrix says:

• "You must follow the general scenario by a certain age."
• "If your child isn't writing a startup at 10, all is lost."
• "If you changed professions after 30, you're late."

At Polaris we choose a different approach:

• education is not a race, but a trajectory;
• quality of thinking and personal resilience matter more than speed;
• we give children and adults tools:
• to understand how the world works,
• to realize how algorithms and statistics shape perception,
• to distinguish reality from simulations.

Technical disciplines, robotics, programming, working with AI — for us, this isn't just about technology. It's about the ability to disassemble complex systems, ask the right questions, and not succumb to illusions.

Instead of a Conclusion

You don't have to fit someone else's picture of success. You don't have to live like the small percentage of people in your feed.

Your value isn't measured by the number of trips per year, phone brand, or the number of zeros in someone else's screenshot.

It's measured by what you create in reality, and by what kind of people you and your children become.

If you want to exit the race for others' decorations and return to living work that relies on facts, laws, and meaning, —

education and engineering can be that exit from the matrix.

And at Polaris, we do everything to make that education honest, deep, and truly human.