Ask HN: How do you deal with professional envy?

>Another way to approach this is acknowledging that some people are actually very talented, some people are very focused and work incredibly hard.

It's also worth remembering that these talented, hard working, people didn't author their talents or tendencies for working hard. Their talents and temperaments derive completely from their genes, upbringing and to varying degrees luck. I.e. they can't really - in the ultimate sense - take credit for their success. Nor can I.

>Another way to deal with this is meditation.

I've found meditation a great way to more deeply instill the disposition above. It has helped me celebrate - rather than seethe - with people when they 'achieve' any kind of success.

Wound up parting ways with the company.

Because NOBODY else there was ever going to have the opportunity to be a "high-flying" developer.

Basically, there were a few engineers that had gained the trust of upper management. The "chosen few" engineers were talented, though not spectacularly so, and had also saddled the company with their share of mistakes and lots of technical debt.

This created a cycle where:

1. The "chosen few" developers got all of the greenfield(-ish) development work -- the only work at the company where it was really possible to move quickly, hit deadlines, and "wow" people

2. The "chosen few" developers got to make nearly all of the technical decisions, and if you weren't one of them you were stuck forever implementing somebody else's idea of a good solution

3. The "chosen few" developers were always solving challenging issues, which made them look impressive to management, who lacked the technical ability to understand that a lot of these issues were actually caused by the "chosen few"'s poor decisions in the first place.

4. The "other" developers were always plodding waist-deep through technical debt, much of it caused by the "chosen few."

I was there for only four years but eventually it became clear that there was literally no way for me to shine there. You can't shine when doing maintenance work on legacy nightmare code. I became jealous of the "chosen few" (or, perhaps more accurately, I grew resentful of management) and grew a bit bitter and burned out. My work suffered and I was eventually let go.

That was one year ago.

Now I'm making 25% more money at a different company where I'm 100% more productive and 100% happier. =)

     When someone younger than me, in my field, is making more money 
     / getting more acclaim / winning praise from people I respect, 
     it makes me seethe. Sometimes I even waste my time looking for 
     a way to invalidate them, to put an asterisk* on their success, 
     so I can feel better about myself.

I think a key question is, "Are you jealous because they're more talented than you? Or are you jealous because they have been given opportunities that you have unfairly been denied?"

If you are jealous because they are more talented than you, then YOU are the problem. Get better, find something you're the best at, or (perhaps most healthily) accept the fact that you can be a perfectly valuable human being without being the best at something.

If you are jealous because you're not given a fair chance, then THE COMPANY is the problem.

My question to people with this attitude is, what is the point of your life?

I've lost a lot of friends and recognize that life is way too short to not be putting as much time as possible toward something you find totally compelling. The stock answer is contentment and "happiness."

The most content person I've ever met was a flower cart man in Belmopan, Belize. Probably made $100 a week at most. He knew all he wanted to do was bring beautiful flowers to people and give them a smile. He had a point in life. Sure he had kids, but he knew that they would move on one day and do their own thing, and he wanted to be known as the best flower man in Belize so he got up early to start and worked late.

This pervasive idea that "it's just a fucking job" is ultimately a milquetoast cop-out. Spend your hours doing something that has impact to you.

No, this doesn't happen to me. When someone younger gets accolades, I celebrate. If I can, I try to learn a technique from them that might have helped them get their success, but it's not always possible to isolate for just one thing.

That’s an interesting thought that I’ve never personally had. I know dozens of people whose lives I’d rather have.