Galicia Gordon on Leading Learners Blog

Apr 14, 2022

How To Push Past Jealousy From Childhood Friends, Family, Coworkers, And Peers

Happy end-of-week!

I should limit postings on the blog, but the long weekend is ahead and the team is excited for the summer months. 

Numerous hackathons to join in on, academic events, and hundreds of projects in store. Which, as we all inherently know, Karina and Galicia never share anything until it is fully done. Emphasis on fully. KK, as you are auditing ⏤ do not kill me.

I wanted to address a topic.

Never am I jealous, never am I insecure, and never am I someone to wish badly for others. Never.

I was speaking to some students yesterday. It was a huge multicultural group and you could see everyone’s diverse experiences. 

I have finally grasped, luckily just before turning an adult, one of the most important life lessons thus far.

People from your childhood, high school years, or college/university years, non-profit group, or even coworkers at a common workplace, for the most part, do not like to see people their same age successful, and I feel sorry for them.

Never am I jealous, never am I insecure, and never am I someone to wish badly for others. Never.

I always tell people “I feel so bad for you” directly when they are not able to accomplish what they want to, then look down on other people who can. If you are working on a lot of support roles for companies, you then get a little aloof to any negativity - but maybe that is simply me.

I can name two people (both male and female) that I used to speak to all the time. But, because they were so jealous, they left my life and played the “victim” card, pretending to be affected by me encouraging them, only wanting them to succeed, and always supporting them in every single area of their lives. Never doing any wrong to them. Again, I feel sad that they are insecure and overall sad inside.

I have said before that I am never rude, insulting or have been mean to anyone in my life, and I know, oddly enough, that can actually make people mad at me. I cannot help but feel sad for them.

I can name both a woman and man in the tech space I love who have had numerous people actively jealous of them. Their closest friends too. 

Even in some interviews, both had people from their childhoods so jealous of them, that they stalked them, did things to antagonize them (as in, they were wrong, but tried to point the finger - simply psychologically toxic), then got an emotional reaction from them, some even thought they were “better” than them because they were not people of colour or racialized individuals, ironically made these people confident, and tried to claim their successes. It is a passion of mine to watch interviews where people who broke others’ trust try to come back into their life.

Yet, they still pushed forward.

And, of course, thank goodness they did. We would not have some incredible tools we do today.

Whenever you feel a jealous aura from someone, have anyone you would only help betray or use you, or feel like you should keep yourself away from someone because of their negativity, you only need to ask yourself two questions.

Would you ever do any wrong? Do you really not want everyone around you to be successful?

If no, keep pushing forward. If yes, then you are more than likely to be at fault.

Jealousy is never a question or thought in my mind. Ever. I have never and will never be jealous.

And just before anyone says, what if ____. No. Never am I jealous of career successes, never am I jealous of money, never am I jealous of looks, never am I ever jealous of anyone.

I want everyone to have billion-dollar companies. I want everyone to become happy and successful. The large majority of people cannot say that. But I mean it. Every single person.

If you know you only do well by others, you will never be jealous of anyone on this Earth.

People are only jealous because they would not only do well by others. Or they have ulterior motives. Or are pretending to be nice, when they are not.

I was even saying to my mum that the only people who would be angry, jealous, and mad that you are doing well or putting up a boundary, are people who benefitted from you not.

Those are simply the saddest people in the world, who, no matter how hard to try and support them every waking day, are just so sad that they have to undermine you and use you. These are fake people who pretend to be happy for others.

I never take anything seriously from them.

Never listen to them. Ever. Feel very sorry for them. 

There are incredible ideas from people who started projects during their academic years.

And keep pushing forward.