Do you like people who are non-threatening to your ego or do you make friends with people who are a competition to you and challenge you to raise your bar everyday?
Sometimes we choose the easy way out. We like people who put us on a pedestal. We like people who in no-way can be compete with us and hence, they look up to us. It feels non-threatening to like those people and encourage those people and load them with praises.
If someone is truly excellent, we see them as a threat, and find it difficult to appreciate them. So, we try to pull them down, or assume that they just got lucky with success, or sometimes even talk about them in a condescending way. We know their caliber but we choose to not acknowledge it because it threatens our ego. And all these happen at an unconscious level. We don’t consciously choose to be this way. That’s why it is important to question yourself, every time you dislike someone or more importantly, don’t wish to appreciate someone’s talent, why is it that you do so? Therein, lies a great learning for you.
The belief that there’s enough for all of us to live in abundance in this world is going to help us recognise and encourage other talents to flourish without feeling jealous or envious.
It is also important to be friends with people who can challenge you healthily and who are equally, if not more talented than you. It’s funny that we find it easy to like, admire and appreciate people who are way above our league or way below. But not someone within our own league. Everyone has their own share of success. No one’s success eats up your share. To believe in that abundance will help us let go of ego, envy and jealousy and enjoy everyone’s talent equally.