There’s a peculiar kind of blindness that affects us when we encounter someone who has what we want. It’s subtle, insidious, and often completely invisible to us while we’re experiencing it. We look at someone accomplished, successful, or seemingly blessed with talents we wish we had, and without realizing it, we start cataloging their flaws instead of learning from their strengths.
I’ve watched this happen countless times, both in others and in myself. A colleague lands a promotion, and suddenly we’re experts on all the ways they don’t really deserve it. Someone younger achieves something we’ve been working toward for years, and we immediately begin questioning whether their success is even legitimate. A peer gets recognized for work in our field, and we find ourselves minimizing their contributions or attributing their success to luck, connections, or circumstances rather than skill.
The tricky thing about jealousy is that it disguises itself as discernment. We tell ourselves we’re being realistic, that we’re simply seeing through the hype, that we’re maintaining healthy skepticism. We convince ourselves that our criticisms are objective observations rather than emotional reactions to our own insecurities.
But here’s what we lose when we let jealousy filter our perception: we lose the opportunity to learn from people who have something valuable to teach us. Every person who has achieved something you want to achieve has likely learned lessons that could help you. They’ve made mistakes you could avoid, discovered strategies you could adapt, developed habits you could adopt. When jealousy clouds your evaluation of them, you’re essentially choosing to remain ignorant of potentially valuable knowledge because the teacher makes you uncomfortable.
Think about the people you most admire, the ones whose lives or work genuinely inspire you. Chances are, at least some of them have advantages you don’t have, or they’ve achieved things you haven’t. The difference between them being role models and them being sources of resentment often comes down to how you choose to frame their success in your own mind.
The person who seems to have it all probably doesn’t, but that’s not actually the point. The point is whether you can look past your own feelings of inadequacy or competitiveness long enough to see what they’re doing right. Can you study their approach without the constant mental commentary about how it’s easier for them, or how you could do it too if you had their resources, or how they’re probably not as great as everyone thinks?
This doesn’t mean you should be uncritical. Not everyone who appears successful is worthy of emulation, and there are plenty of people whose methods or values genuinely conflict with your own. The key is being honest with yourself about whether your criticism stems from legitimate concerns about their character or methods, or whether it’s really just jealousy wearing a mask of rationality.
One useful test is to imagine that same person had achieved the same things but you felt no competitive relationship with them whatsoever. Maybe they’re in a completely different field, or a different generation, or working on problems so far removed from your own life that you couldn’t possibly feel threatened. Would you still see the same flaws? Would you still dismiss their achievements? If the answer is no, then jealousy is probably distorting your vision.
The most successful people I know are voracious learners, and one thing I’ve noticed about them is their willingness to learn from anyone, including people they might have reason to resent. They can watch a competitor give a brilliant presentation and walk away with three new techniques to try, rather than walking away with a list of reasons why that person didn’t deserve the standing ovation. They can read about someone else’s success and think about what that person did right, not just about how unfair it is that it wasn’t them.This kind of openness requires genuine humility, which is different from false modesty. It means being secure enough in your own worth that someone else’s success doesn’t feel like a threat to your identity. It means understanding that there’s enough success to go around, that someone else winning doesn’t mean you’re losing, and that every person who’s gone before you on a path you want to travel has potentially valuable information about the terrain ahead.
When you feel that familiar tightness in your chest while reading about someone’s achievement, or that reflexive urge to find fault with someone everyone else is praising, pause. Notice it. Ask yourself what you’re really feeling and why. Are you genuinely concerned about their methods or impact, or are you just uncomfortable with the reminder that they’ve done something you haven’t?
Then make a choice. You can continue down the path of criticism and dismissal, which might protect your ego in the short term but will cost you knowledge and growth in the long term. Or you can acknowledge your jealousy, set it aside as best you can, and ask yourself what you can learn from this person who has accomplished something you admire, even if admitting your admiration stings a little.The people who become our best role models are rarely the ones who make us feel completely comfortable. They’re usually the ones who challenge us, who show us what’s possible, who make us confront the gap between where we are and where we want to be. That confrontation is inherently uncomfortable, and jealousy is often just discomfort dressed up as moral superiority.
Clear vision requires clean lenses. Don’t let jealousy smudge yours.
