I cannot remember how many times I have reminded myself that other people are not me, and I am not them. We all have different starting points, different journeys, different abilities, and struggles of our own. I understand this. I can even explain it so clearly that it almost sounds as though understanding a truth should be enough to make me capable of living by it. But understanding is one thing. Acceptance is another.

It is difficult to watch others achieve the very things I have longed for while I remain somewhere I cannot quite name. I see their success. I know how hard they have worked, and I know they deserve it. I genuinely want to congratulate them. Yet somewhere inside me, another feeling emerges, quietly and uncomfortably, until I almost wish I could pretend it isn’t there. I am jealous. I want those results, too. I want to see my efforts become something tangible, something I can finally be proud of without having to search for another reason to console myself.

But what hurts me most is not that other people have succeeded. It is the feeling that I have tried so hard and still have not reached the place I wanted to be. I begin to question myself. Have I not worked hard enough? Were the things I once took pride in never particularly remarkable? Have I been overestimating my abilities all along? Someone else’s success suddenly becomes a mirror I am reluctant to look into. Not because it reflects anything unpleasant about them, but because standing before it makes me painfully aware of everything I believe I lack.

And then I feel ashamed of being jealous. I accuse myself of being petty. I tell myself that a good friend should be happy when someone they care about succeeds. That a kind person should be able to appreciate another person’s happiness without comparing it to their own disappointment. I want to be that kind of person. But how do I feel entirely happy for someone when their happiness unintentionally reminds me of a dream that has yet to come true?

I do not wish for them to fail. I never have. If I could choose, I would still want them to receive everything they deserve. I only wish that while life is being generous to them, it might remember to leave something for me, too. I want to share in their happiness, not stand beside it wondering when my turn will come. I think part of what troubles me is that I have always believed good feelings must exist in their purest form. That if I am genuinely happy for someone, I should not be allowed to feel sad for myself. That a congratulation is only sincere if there is not the slightest trace of jealousy behind it.

But human beings are rarely capable of feeling only one thing at a time. I can be happy that someone has achieved their dream and sad that mine still feels so far away. I can admire them while continuing to wish for something similar. I can acknowledge my jealousy without allowing it to become a desire to hurt anyone. Those feelings do not necessarily cancel one another out. I am beginning to think that the most difficult part is not learning to celebrate other people’s success, but learning to face myself in those moments.

Because when I fail to achieve something I want, I rarely allow myself to be simply disappointed. I immediately begin searching for an explanation, a mistake, some personal inadequacy I can hold responsible. I turn an unfavorable result into evidence that I am not good enough, then use someone else’s success to reinforce that conclusion. I have been treating myself as though every disappointment requires someone to blame. And that someone is always me.

I do not know when I began to believe that my worth needed to be confirmed by a result that could be compared with someone else’s. A grade, an award, a recognition of some kind. I know I have worked hard, but when those efforts fail to take me where I want to go, they suddenly seem painfully insignificant. Yet I have never believed that a friend becomes less worthy simply because they fail.

I can recognize their efforts even when no one else does. I can remind them that a single result cannot define an entire person. I can believe that they still have opportunities ahead of them, that everything they have worked for does not become meaningless because of one disappointment. Why, then, are those same words so difficult to believe when the person who needs to hear them is me? Why can I be so understanding of other people’s limitations while treating my own as something shameful?

I do not want to use the phrase “everyone has their own journey” as an easy consolation. There are competitions we genuinely want to win. There are limited opportunities, results that cannot be shared equally, and disappointments that cannot be softened simply by reminding ourselves that everyone is different. I do not want to pretend that success does not matter to me. It does. Deeply. I want my efforts to be rewarded. I want to be recognized. I want to look back on a chapter of my life and know that I have finally arrived somewhere I once desperately wanted to be.

Those desires do not make me a bad person. What I need to learn is not how to abandon my ambitions in order to become more generous. I simply do not want ambition to become a reason to despise myself, nor do I want jealousy to make me forget that other people have every right to be happy with what they have achieved. I want to preserve both things: my sincerity toward others and my hope for myself.

Today, I may still struggle to smile without feeling a quiet ache somewhere inside me. My congratulations may still carry a sadness that no one else can see. I do not need to deny that sadness to prove that I am a good person. I only need to make sure it does not turn into bitterness. I can congratulate them and then allow myself to grieve what I have not yet achieved. I can admire their accomplishments without interpreting my own life as a failure. And I can continue trying, not because I need to prove that I am better than anyone else, but because the things I want still genuinely matter to me.

I do not know when I will receive the results I have been waiting for. I do not know whether all my efforts will eventually lead me exactly where I hope to go. But I do not want to turn the years I spend waiting into a battle against other people’s happiness. I am not sad because they have received something wonderful. I am sad because I have wanted something wonderful for myself for so long.

And I hope that one day, when I stand before someone else’s success, I will be able to celebrate it without feeling the need to apologize for my own disappointment. Because I have never wanted life to take anything away from them in order to give it to me. I only hope that, among all the wonderful things finding their way into other people’s lives, something wonderful will eventually find its way into mine, too.

-EL-