How to Stop Getting Jealous When Others Succeed

Yellowface, The Success-Age Axis, and Schadenfreude

1.              Jealousy, Jealousy

As hard it is to admit, our peers’ success can make us feel worse about ourselves.

R.F. Kuang shows this brilliantly in her novel Yellowface. The story opens with June Haywood going out for drinks to celebrate her friend Athena’s Netflix deal. But rather than describing their interactions, the first few pages are inner monologues on jealousy.

As a struggling novelist, June’s always left in Athena’s shadow – who’s exactly like June in terms of age and alma mater but is successful in all the ways June isn’t. Athena’s that rare kind of writer who’s both best-selling and critically acclaimed; physically beautiful and independently wealthy– the kind of prodigy nothing ever seems to go wrong for. Every achievement for Athena is another reminder for June of her own lack thereof. Their relationship is captivating because it’s so realistic: the clear jealousy lacing their conversations, the subtle flexing on Athena’s part and the implicit resentment on June’s, and, importantly, the fact that they refuse to address the envy for what it is.

I could relate. In college, my unilateral dream was to be a worship leader. I was looking to get an internship with my local church. Then, one day, a younger guy showed up who could play and sing better than I ever could – and, from my insecure perspective, was more handsome than I was (very shallow, I know – but I was 20, and fielding every girls’ inquiries as to this guy’s singleness was enough to make anyone insecure). I didn’t just lose the internship; I also had to submit to this guy’s leadership.

Thus, my envy and resentment plagued our interactions. In Christianese, he became a thorn in my flesh. But like June, I never addressed it.

While every generation struggles with this kind of comparison, the social media generation has it the hardest. Like Olivia Rodrigo laments on “Jealousy, Jealousy,” “I wanna throw my phone across the room, ‘Cause all these girls are too good to be true…Comparison is killing me slowly.”

Social media is a 24/7 flex parade disguised as reality. It unblurs the once ambiguous lines of who’s successful and who’s not, sorting everyone into an unnaturally even hierarchy. Not only does it drill in the idea that material and aesthetic success matters, but also that you need to play Keep Up with the Jones’ with everyone in your age bracket.

This is due to a trend I’ve noticed lately I call the “Success-Age Axis.” It’s basically the idea that in order to feel good about yourself, what you’ve accomplished should be in proportion to how old you are. It’s become one of the most crucial tokens of social currency. To be even a few years off that mark of, let’s say, 25 and married with a decent income and a starter home if you’re a Christian, or 32 and married with solid income and lavish pad if you’re a non-Christian, can feel like actual social suicide.

It pervades our conversations. The dreaded, “So, what do you do?” measuringstick for sizing the other’s achievements. Amygdala fully inflamed, we respond with ten asterisks as to why things might sound like they’re coming along a little slow career-or-relationship-wise and why it’s actually perfectly reasonable to be where we’re at right now.

This fear is unreasonable of course. We’re consciously aware that it shouldn’t matter how we compare with others, but for some reason it still feels like it matters – a lot.

Why? It’s probably because of our fixation with status.

2.              Schadenfreude

Research affirms that humans are driven by status – the desire for esteem, respect, or affirmation based on social rank – and this craving affects everything from mental health to economics to anxieties over getting into top universities or workplaces. Psychologist Cameron Anderson and colleagues describe status as a “fundamental human need” – something we crave on par with the other needs on Maslow’s hierarchy.

We can have surprisingly big reactions to small status changes; if our kid gets first chair in middle school orchestra or we receive a flattering comment from someone we look up to, our brains reward the experience with a lovely blend of endorphins, dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. Conversely, if our child gets cut from the basketball team or the neighbor gets a fancy patio update, we might get hit with an influx of stress-inducing cortisol.

Our status fixation also explains the concept of schadenfreude. It’s a German word that describes the feeling of joy at watching the pain of others. Which sounds morbid, but the research finds that it’s pretty common.

Schadenfreude isn’t sadistic. The joy isn’t about watching physical pain as much as watching humiliation or failure. It’s the pleasure at watching someone’s status plummet – and the dread at watching someone’s status ascend.

For example, when subjects were asked to read about someone rich, popular, intelligent, and attractive, regions in their brain that registered pain flared; but when they read about this imaginary person’s demotion, their pleasure sites lit up. The higher the person’s status, the more pleasure they felt from their downfall. Importantly, the amount of pleasure also corresponded to the fields the subjects worked in: if a professor suffered a downfall, fellow academics felt more pleasure than the downfall of someone outside their field.

We like watching other people lose status; we dislike when peers – especially those who work in our fields – gain status. This is why June from Yellowface is so realistic: it can be hard to stomach our peers getting ahead of us – and even harder to admit that we feel that way.

3.              Live? Shall How We Then?

If you’re a follower a Jesus, you’re probably well aware that jealousy isn’t good. As Jesus’ half-brother James wrote, “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice” (James 3:14) – a great sentiment to hear from the guy who grew up having to compare himself with the Son of God.

Jealousy doesn’t just cause a stinging ache in ourselves; it also creates disorder in our environments. James uses the Greek word eritheias (ερiθeiάς), which is the same word that Aristotle uses to describe someone who seeks political office so they can advance their own power rather than help society. It’s the kind of self-seeking behavior that brands you as your own tribe rather than a team player.

Now, bear with me: James’ warning might help us understand how to stop getting upset when people succeed.

Why? Because, in a roundabout way, it reminds us that the harder we try to cultivate our own happiness and success, the harder it’ll be to feel happy and successful. The more that we allow selfish ambition and jealousy drive our work, the less satisfied we’ll feel with our work.

If we set out to carve a temple for our own glory, there will always be someone who’s temple is bigger – and we’ll live in perpetual fear of those around us catching up to our temple’s progress.

There’s no winning that game.

But there’s another option that, even though it might not look like winning, is far wiser: stop playing the game. Let go of the need to one-up, come out on top, or look the best.

In other words, we have to stop bragging, making a big deal over, or living vicariously through our accomplishments. Because the more we do, the more compelled those around us will feel to do the same.

This is because jealousy and selfish ambition act like contagions. They create a vicious cycle where everyone feels the need to outdo one another. And the cycle doesn’t have an endpoint: people who live for their resume have to keep slaving away to refine their resume or else they’ll feel like a failure.

So rather than trying to outdo everyone else’s resume, we should “Outdo one another in showing honor” (Romans 12:10).

When Paul offers an ideal description of Christian community in Romans 12, he includes the feature that they will “Rejoice with those who rejoice,” and “weep with those who weep” (v. 15).

This is the exact opposite of schadenfreude. Rather than secretly rejoicing in light of those who weep or weeping in response to those who rejoice, an authentic community will learn to mirror each others’ emotions. We show up to the party to celebrate with them and show up to the hospital to suffer with them.

Mirroring others' emotions might require what Anna Lembke calls “radical honesty” – telling the truth even when it feels painful and cringey. It’s a necessity for any healing process.

Jealousy can be as potent as any drug, and detoxing requires admitting first to ourselves and then to others how we’re really feeling. Bearing the weight of our envy along with the discontent about our own level of success. Were June radically honest with Athena, perhaps the plot would’ve never gotten rolling. Their relationship could’ve been marked by an authentic understanding of each other’s feelings rather than envy and conflict.

I never had the guts to admit how I was feeling to that younger, handsomer worship leader. And I really regret that. But on the other hand, I did practice radical honesty with myself and my small group about my jealousy and insecurity. That helped – a lot. It turned my resentment into thankfulness that someone talented could use their gifts to glorify God. By the end of his tenure, I genuinely enjoyed having him around.

All this to say, you can’t just magically stop being upset when other people succeed. You have to intentionally start cheering other people on and loosening your grip on your own success. Counting others as more significant than yourself (Phil. 2:3), as the apostle Paul said, isn’t just good for living in line with God’s will for the world – it’s also good for your mental and spiritual health. Put another way, we can only let go of jealousy when we learn to let go of the things we get jealous over.