Member-only story
Embracing other’s successes as fuel for your own: Don’t knock ‘em down. Build yourself up.
For the sake of argument let’s be clear on how we’re defining success. It means, ‘the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors; the accomplishment of one’s goals.’
It can be easy to secretly, or openly for that matter, minimize another’s success in order to make yourself feel better about your own mediocre efforts and/or performance.
It’s the Crabs in a Bucket theory. In nature if there are a bunch of crabs in a shallow bucket, there will be some that will try and climb out by using the others as a ladder of sorts. As this one is ascending the pile, the others below will try to grab hold and pull them back down.
We are naturally, because it’s easier, drawn to those who are like us and occupy similar seats on this bus ride we call life. We’re more comfortable with ‘our own’.
It’s much more challenging to surround ourselves with those that we may deem superior. Why is that? Well, in a relationship between humans, if one is superior, then by default the other most likely has to be inferior. That’s how the math works. Water does seek its own level and birds of a feather flock together.
It’s easy to feel lesser because of the perceived success of others. It makes us feel…
