The Path to Success Conjures Demons

[bigneil]

Many have commented on how their failures are what inspired them to achieve the things that made a significant difference in their lives. Many of us can attest to that. We've been fired all the way to the top at work, and rejected all the way to the hottest women.

What is seldom discussed is a phenomenon that seems to occur as you achieve success in a certain area. There is a singularity that seems to bring new challenges out of thin air.

Most often this is in the form of jealous colleagues. The people closest to you. They study you to find a chink in your armor and it's remarkable how the expose their agenda by trying to exploit your weaknesses. When they see you are about to achieve something, they suddenly create an issue. You know you are over the target when you start catching flak.

Note: In my case it's something happening at work.

Whether you are about to have a technical achievement at work, or you are about to score your dream girl, you will find that new obstacles will be created, seemingly by the release of your own latent energy - a sonic boom of sorts - and you must plan in advance to overcome them as well.

Overall, this has a normalizing effect. If you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket, one can climb out on the backs of the others if not for the fact that they all hold him back.

How have you dealt with this phenomenon?

 

[bigneil]

I suppose asking the people here to reflect on success is like asking the Cubs what it takes to win the World Series. And my OP covers half of my haters here, who pretended they "Just don't want to see me get hurt" (while in reality they just don't want to see me experience pleasure).

Thankfully however, and as usual, Robert Greene has covered this issue in War Strategy 28 "Give Your Rivals Enough Rope To Hang Themselves".

"Life's greatest dangers ofters often come not from external enemies but from our supposed colleagues and friends who pretend to work for the common cause while scheming to sabotage us."

"A rival who is made to feel defensive and inferior will tend to act defensive and inferior, to his or her detriment." p. 370

"Life is a war against the malice of men."
- Baltasar Gracian

 

[backseatjuan]

The more bigger catfish gets the more people want to kill it, the only way to stay alive is to hide. Hide your success.

 

[gr0uch]

A big part of life is about adjusting on the fly right? Nothing ever goes perfectly or EXACTLY the way you want it to. It's natural, once you reach a goal or accomplishment, new challenges arise. And the more success you achieve, the more "haters gonna hate".

There's been a bunch of threads about how people who don't really want to see you succeed. That'll never change. All you can do is do you and perservere.

 

[muscleman]

How have you dealt with this phenomenon?

Ignore the people who try to pull you back in. If they can't be ignored, cut them off. If that's still not enough, make them look bad as a last resort. This is natural in the ascendency to power.

"To be a man of power is to be alone" (don't remember what movie this is from)

Active dissociate yourself from those who drag you down and associate yourself with those who can pull you up. It will require you to dump friends, just let them down smoothly. I've let go of a lot of friends the past few years, and have now gotten to a point where I just have a non-committed, but broad social circle.

 

[zekko]

I suppose asking the people here to reflect on success is like asking the Cubs what it takes to win the World Series.

Backbreaker, is that you?

 

[btownbuck2012]

I've learned you can never expect anyone to be on your side. Some people will choose to stick with you, be on your side, etc, BUT you can never expect it. You **** your mind up when you believe people want YOU to succeed at all costs. This isn't reality. living in reality is realizing that achieving great success will come with an intense inner-jealousy from your friends and people whom you thought had your back no matter what. People will say "wow, that's great", but deep down they are burning up. I do the same sh!t too. I think it's a normal human reaction.

I think a healthy way to respond is to ****ing live in reality. Not saying you're not Bigneil, I'm just speaking in general. I'm amazed at how people go out of their way to make what they perceive as reality more comfortable to themselves. This is life. If you're gonna bust your azz to be great at something, you're definitely gonna get "hated on". Best Friends will get jealous and act differently towards you. People will make comments that piss you the fvck off. Sh!t will hit the fan.

I finished my internship up in washington this past week and I was walking around in dc today soaking everything in before i head back to indiana tomorrow and I saw a quote at the FDR memorial that resonated within me. It was something Eleanor Roosevelt said about her husband

"....Illness gave him strength and courage he had not had before. He had to think out the fundamentals of living and learn the greatest of all lessons... Infinite patience and never-ending persistence"

I know i'm rambling about sh!t that's probably off topic but i think that quote pretty much nails it. Achieving anything significant in this life requires infinite patience and never-ending persistence. Having other people, some whom perhaps were your best friends or close co-workers, turn on you is just a-part of the process of becoming great. if it were easy to become great, everyone would do it. There's a reason most people haven't done sh!t with their lives. It's too hard.