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Ask HN: How do you deal with professional envy?

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11–20 of 292 posts

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional envy?

#11
You’re already halfway there by recognizing that mentally bringing someone down is a waste of time, and that the only point is to feel better about yourself.

Both being jealous and mentally knocking people down are pretty normal human things to do. If you listen, you’ll notice lots of people say things out loud that have the undertone of here’s why you’re not that great or here’s why I’m better than you. Sometimes it’s subtle, sometimes it’s not.

The main thing I tend to think about is how I’m not in competition with anyone but myself. I can improve, or not improve, and I can affect my own situation. But either way, it doesn’t affect anyone else, and their lot doesn’t affect me. It won’t help me make more money or get more attention if I bring someone else down, nor will it prevent them from getting attention or money.

Another way to approach this is acknowledging that some people are actually very talented, some people are very focused and work incredibly hard. You have the option to drop the jealousy and join others in respecting someone’s achievements. You can also study them, find out what they’re doing and how they work in order to emulate the behaviors that got them where they are.

Another way to deal with this is meditation. If you study a little meditation, one of the first things you learn is how to identify your talkative and often negative inner voice, and then after you learn how to recognize it, you learn to acknowledge it and let it go, in favor of a more peaceful and positive inner monologue.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional envy?

#12

> Does this happen to anyone else? This happens to pretty much everyone. > What do you do about it? Your options are: Motivation: " If I learn to do the things s/he does, I can be more successful too. " Rationalization: " Well, if I had had the same opportunities s/he did, I'd have been just as successful. I did the best I could with what I had. And at least I'm still doing better than X, Y, and Z. " Indifference: "…

I've found that envy is proportional to our own insecurity, self doubt, unhappiness with our own lives, etc.

The more confident, self assured, and happy I became with my own life, the more the envy went away. The more I became happy for that person's success. Also I've found that there more I know and like a person, the less envy I felt.

At least for me, getting married helped with this big-time.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional envy?

#13
Consider 'someone' to be one and the same as yourself.

And then you can celebrate 'your' successes, commiserate failures, lament failings, while freeing the other you to improve.

More difficult if 'they're' arrogant and sneering perhaps, but that's a only a challenge, to be faced head-on.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional envy?

#14
Happened to me as well.

But you have to realize there are so many things are going on you might not be aware of eg. relations, background, even luck!

Instead, try to exploit your recognition of their success and ask/learn about their story. That will help you a lot too.

When you think that way: they went through a path instead of you so you can now explore their story and get their experience much faster.

And don't forget: when there are 10 competitors with virtually the same skills and performance its still only one who wins the contest with the prize and goes away with all the chicks. The others seem to be unsuccessful from a bird view, but in reality there might be not much difference in value.

Realizing this made calm, I am totally ok with lottery. Everything is a lottery a bit, except you really nail it: but that requires so much work I won't ever be envy.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional envy?

#15
post #10

I have a variety of ways to analyse this: 0) Remember that social media and the press shows the best parts of people's lives and rarely the crappy parts that everyone has. 1) You can't have it all. Often people sacrifice other parts of their lives to achieve in one area. My old boss that got promoted to a very high position never found a partner or children. Other tech friends who have earned a lot have worked thier…

Three of these methods are effectively, "My life is probably better than theirs anyway," and two are, "It wasn't a fair fight anyway."

This might work on a surface level, but you're just plastering over the problem, not rising above it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional envy?

#18
I think there's a process everyone has to go through in life of working out what truly makes them happy.

When you're in your early 20s everyone has similar goals - you're going to be a goddamn giant success, no matter what your field is. As the years go on you realise that's not going to happen and you have to re-evaluate. It's not always easy.

For me personally, I know I do good work. I know my coworkers can rely on me to deliver. Maybe I could be out there giving more conference talks and raising my profile, but I've learned to accept that isn't my forte, and that's ok. As engineers most of us are extremely lucky that even with very little public recognition we still earn the kind of money most people can only dream of.

When I'm at work, I do the best I can do. Then I get out of the door at a good time, go home to my family and have a blast with them. I'm happy, though my 21 year old self might recoil in horror to see it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you deal with professional envy?

#20
The other person is just a vehicle for existing shame/self loathing. If you want to stop feeling this way I suggest trying therapy and confronting the deeper sources of these feelings.

I and many other people do not ever seethe about the successes of others. I don’t say that to self-aggrandize, but rather to counter some of the other people here saying it’s normal or universal. It’s not.

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