When you begin to notice them, no one warns you what they are. They don’t arrive as villains. They arrive as voices lowered just enough, as pauses where words should be, as sentences shaped to bruise without leaving a mark. They never accuse you outright. They imply, they suggest. They let tone do the dirty work. Keeping such people close feels harmless at first.
You tell yourself you’re being mature, forgiving, evolved. But slowly, quietly, your peace starts diminishing, drop by drop—enough to matter. So you learn something unromantic but necessary, some people are not meant to be fought, loved, or understood. They are meant to be placed far enough away that their pull no longer reaches you, not as enemies, neither as friends, just irrelevant.
Then somewhere along the way, you sense it, almost accidentally. You are more at ease with your own existence than they are with theirs. It isn’t pride, it isn’t victory. It’s just plain simple truth. That truth hardens you in the right places. Let them dislike you. Let them misread you. Let them speak your name as if it tastes bitter.
You keep moving. Progress without noise becomes your quiet reply, growth without resentment becomes your shield. You stop explaining. You stop correcting. You stop proving.
When you see them in person, you learn another discipline, stillness. No tightening of the jaw. No change in breath. No flicker in the eyes. This is not cruelty, this is control. Emotion feeds them meaning, silence starves them of it.
With time, something strange happens. What once cut now barely grazes. What once echoed in your head becomes absurd, almost theatrical. You begin to see it clearly: their behaviour is not hurtful, it is juvenile. You stop replaying their words. You stop carrying their shadows home with you. They become figures in the background; flat, exaggerated, forgettable—a noise you no longer turn toward.
One fine day without confrontation, without bitterness, without becoming anything you would later regret, you outgrow them. They fade, and you remain—not untouched, but intact.
Envious people aren’t meant to be confronted, only distanced—until their voices fade. You don’t defeat them, you outgrow them.
Silence is a superpower in a this world
ReplyDeleteCould you write your thoughts on how to accept not getting the thing one wants most in life?
ReplyDeleteBenign envy and malicious envy are two very different feelings. Benign envy is pretty harmless, it’s that moment when you admire someone’s success and it motivates you to step up and aim higher yourself. Malicious envy, though, is a whole different story. It’s hostile, making you bitter toward people who are doing better, and sometimes it turns into that “crab mentality” of pulling others down instead of lifting yourself up. That kind of envy and the people stuck in it are best avoided. Great Article.
ReplyDeleteI always take a moment to reflect before feeling envious of others. When I see someone with something I desire, I remember that I don’t know the effort it took for them to achieve it, or the challenges they face to maintain it.
ReplyDeleteNeeded this. Thanks a bunch.
ReplyDeleteI have a gift for articulate complex ideas in simpler way.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling, your work is going to have a lasting impact, because you refuse to let philosophy remain purely abstract. Main purpose of philosophy is to find most profound truths that resonate with our lived reality.
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