Have you ever had an occasion to suddenly be overcome by a blanket of despair, a sort of acknowledgement that you are not where you should be and that luck hasn’t been your best friend all these years? By rights and by the planning of your career or business graph, you should have gone places. You feel sour and you gripe and the chip on your shoulder becomes flinty and sharp-edged. But is it really luck that has been fickle and capricious or is it more likely that you had nothing more to give and just cannot come to terms with the fact that your cupboard is bare? This is your end of the road, like it or not. Few of us, if any, have that level of perception and have to seek shelter for our failures by explaining away the successes of our peer group. When one of them does well or breaks away from the pack we dramatically fail to accept the success as well-earned. He can’t be better than me, he just happened to be in the right place at the right time, just a question of the lucky break or getting the opportunity with a big ‘O.’
So we seek reasons that only exhaust our energy and depress us further.
He has been promoted through influence. Through nepotism. Because he has the money. He sucks up to the bosses. His wife is related to the owner. He stole the concept from his juniors. True, he got ahead by using his subordinates as scapegoats. He is corrupt. He climbed up on the bones of his colleagues. What do you expect from an unscrupulous chap like him? If I had no principles, I could have also forged ahead. Frankly, I think he is over-rated. He’s a sycophant with no self-respect. He begged for this promotion on his knees. His godfather got him the job, who’d look at him otherwise. Beginner’s luck, let’s see how long it lasts. Sorry, I’d rather be where I am than get ahead by being a lick-spittle.
When that urge is upon you, hold back and see why you are not winning the race. Could it be that he was planning a career path while you were sitting on your haunches conning the company and now, when the time has come for the promotion you have been sidetracked because you overslept on the job.
Few of us, if any, will acknowledge that someone is better than us, has more talent, is a go-getter, is blessed with a certain flair that he or she uses to advantage.
Since failure is never our fault, we no longer have the generosity of spirit to admire ability and, therefore, we lose the chance to emulate excellence and maybe move a step or two ahead by doing so. Instead of grumbling, look at your strong points and capitalize on them...maybe, just maybe, you have lost your way. Even our positives are flecked with negatives. Instead we denigrate, waiting with almost transparent eagerness for the successful to trip and fall so we can say, I told you so. It couldn’t have lasted. There is little in the world as demeaning or wretched as watching the glee-fully mediocre gloat over the failure of one who had run ahead of them long ago.
Agreed. No one likes to lose. Sure, no one remembers who comes second. But try not to detract from the other guy’s victory, because he got to the tape before you. Accept him as the better runner. You’ll like yourself more. And for every one who has been a genuine victim, there are a hundred others bemoaning their fate, who’d already gone a bridge too far. And deserved nothing more. The tiger in their tank was just a pudgy cat.
