Question
I have always felt proud of myself for rarely feeling jealous about anyone. I know it is a destructive emotion. I am educated, friendly, popular, pretty, happily married, and all is well in my life.
Some time ago I entered a part-time university course to further enhance my career and made some wonderful friends. One woman in particular became a friend. She is friendly, bubbly and easy to talk to. Yet over the past year she has begun to irritate me. She has a tendency to blow her own trumpet, and really only to me. It can be about the wonderful marks she got in our exams, or on a particular project. She has also begun to work for my company and goes on a bit about the wonderful relationships she has with other employees. She has also secured a slightly better contract than I have. Well that's life, I guess. But when I achieve anything I am always aware of others who have not done so well, so I would never go on about it.
My friend does. I also have to listen to how lovely her husband is - mine is too. Or how intelligent she is. But she's not a brain surgeon! Basically I'm regularly told how great she is. Apart from all this she is nice, a good listener, supportive, and I do like her. So is this just me feeling inadequate? Have I succumbed to jealousy?
I didn't have the most wonderful childhood. I didn't receive much encouragement and lacked self-confidence. But I have worked hard to get where I am today. I also still get criticism from members of my family who think I have ideas above my station. I don't. I just wanted a good life. But could all this be linked to my problem with this woman?
I really need to sort this out as I will be working and socialising a lot with this woman for the foreseeable future and I don't want to go on feeling the way I do. It is destructive.
Answer
You're not comfortable with competitiveness. You don't like being seen as someone who has succeeded. Nor do you like any element of envy in yourself. That's not a criticism. On the contrary, it's a tribute to your innate kindness and sensitivity. It's also a problem you have to solve, a question you have to settle. Since life is all about social interaction, we have to learn to handle competitiveness. It's as essential and learning to talk.
That's not a cynical assessment of human beings. We learn by a constant series of subtle - and not so subtle - comparisons with others. Think of small kids. When they argue they can do it themselves, they're asserting their independence. But they're doing so by making the judgment that they can do 'it' - wash their hair, tie their shoes, feed the dog - just as well as you can. They've made a judgment about themselves, based on comparison with a parent.
We don't lose this basic human skill with age. We simply hone it, integrate it into kindness, compassion, fairness, unselfishness and self-confidence. We swap, if you like, simple one-up-manship for a mature assessment of what constitutes success. We don't stop being competitive, we just handle it better, use it to serve our needs in a more effective, moral and socially acceptable fashion.
This woman friend of yours is competing with you. She sees you as the marker of her own success. But instead of keeping that quietly to herself as an important piece of knowledge about her own personality, - she feels she has to let you know. She's being so obvious it's silly. That, however, is only one reason you feel so uncomfortable. The other reason is that you're competing with her. You're using her as a marker of your success. That causes you difficulties.
Yes, your past is relevant as you rightly point out. Your belief in yourself still rests on a wobbly emotional base. You're afraid of failing. Certainly you want to succeed. But you want to do so quietly, inconspicuously, so that nobody has the opportunity to dance in glee if you slip up. You certainly don't want the limelight of openly saying 'I want that' and going for it, baldly. You feel too vulnerable for that. You're afraid everything might fall down around your ears, and people will crow in delight, and you're self-belief will then shrivel up and die.
The upside of this vulnerability is that you're a kind and generous and humane woman. All you have to do is take that great courage you have in your hands and acknowledge, just to yourself, that you are competing with this woman friend too - and are entirely cheesed off that she's got a better contract. In fact she has successfully moved in on your patch. The good news is that she's so open in her attempts to upstage you. The even better news is that you're being so mature about it. You acknowledge that she's a nice person, that you like her, that you want to remain friendly with her. Just add to that list recognition of the fact that she thinks so highly of you, she's chosen you as the one to compete with.
Compete, with confidence and great good humour. You've clearly got a lot more going for you than you realise. I'll bet she talks to her friends about how mature and self-confident and full of poise you are. She sounds like a nice woman to me, transparent in her need. You could eat her for breakfast, but you won't. Just use this great opportunity to ease yourself into a comfortable relationship with competitiveness - and yes, I do mean your own.
