Congrats if you have plucked envy out of you! How do you avoid being envious of "legit" individuals (i.e those who achieved greater success coming from far adverse situations) ?
> How do you avoid being envious of "legit" individuals (i.e those who achieved greater success coming from far adverse situations
and, unexplained, why wouldn't you still be envious of people who had all the advantages you didn't? It comes off a bit more like sour grapes.
Envy is a natural base human emotion, that's why it was put in the 10 commandments 6 or more thousand years ago. Don't deny you have it, we all do, acknowledge it for what it is, and use it to stimulate yourself to strive harder/better, or give up on what is unattainable and move on to more satisfying goals.
And btw, there are exceptionally good students just like there are exceptionally good athletes, without regard to their background. People, including lousy athletes, applaud good athletes. On HN, it's a constant drumbeat of "it's unfair to test me in my chosen field, it's unfair to look at my scores, it's unfair to judge me, just give ME the job, then I'll show you"
Those "legit" individuals are so rare, that instead of feeling envy, I just feel curiosity, and the desire to learn from them. But so far, I don't know of anyone. I'm sure there are a few, but I haven't met anyone in person that deserves the "legit" label.
> How do you avoid being envious of "legit" individuals (i.e those who achieved greater success coming from far adverse situations) ?
Well, one approach is to just accept agency for one's own choices and have some self-empathy. I understood that where more opportunity might have been there for me, I made choices that were sound to where I was at the time and these choices led me down a different path. Sometimes they look like wise choices in hindsight, and sometimes they look foolish but understandable in context. And then I make sure to find satisfaction in where I am, rather than where I might have been.
True. Something I learn when I came years ago to the US, is you don't have to be awesome at anything, being normal, working hard and keeping in mind principles like "spend less than what you make" already put you above 90% of people. Most folks are lazy out there in the real world. You don't need to grind super hard.
I don't think any individual is "legit" in the sense that something inherent in the human made it so they are destined to succeed regardless of how shitty their life was. My parents came from poverty, and are the only economically successful members of their entire extended family. But each of them told me significant adult figures in their lives that enabled their schooling-- doing chores for them so they had time to study, or shelling out a bit extra to buy them supplies.
I don't know of any heroic human that independently accomplishes without any assistance whatsoever. I do know of many accomplished humans that had small but important influences that enabled them, and I think that has taught me as an adult that I need to ensure kindness and generosity towards humans around me.
I just admire them. They are extremely rare. In chronological order: clever girl from my class, my two mentors at the university, my second boss, my ex neighbor, an iron man athlete with iron will to train every day, my current “client” and current colleague with great work ethics. Sadly only one from 40 people I must work with. Maybe another 3-5 people I don’t remember right now.
