"I thought everybody else was doing much better than I was"
About this Quote
As an Olympic icon, Jenner was marketed as the clean American answer to chaos: disciplined, strong, uncomplicated. That branding leaves little room for the private math of comparison, shame, and self-surveillance. "Everybody else" isn't literal; it's a psychological crowd, the imagined jury you carry into every room. The phrase "much better" is intentionally vague, which is the point. It covers achievement, happiness, masculinity, ease - every metric society uses to rank people without admitting it.
The subtext is that success doesn't cancel insecurity; it can sharpen it. Elite sport is a factory for constant evaluation, where "better" is the only language that counts. When someone at the top admits they felt behind, it exposes how comparison is less a reaction to failure than a habit of mind, reinforced by cameras, sponsors, and the pressure to be a symbol.
Read in the broader arc of Jenner's public life, the quote also hints at a deeper mismatch between outward accomplishment and inner coherence. It's not a confession of weakness so much as a glimpse of the cost of passing as "fine" when you're busy measuring yourself against everyone you think you're supposed to be.
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Jenner, Bruce. (2026, January 16). I thought everybody else was doing much better than I was. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-thought-everybody-else-was-doing-much-better-109560/
Chicago Style
Jenner, Bruce. "I thought everybody else was doing much better than I was." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-thought-everybody-else-was-doing-much-better-109560/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I thought everybody else was doing much better than I was." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-thought-everybody-else-was-doing-much-better-109560/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.








