The situation
I was sure the team lead role was mine, but it went to a colleague who joined two years after me. I’m embarrassed, I resent him, and I’m finding it hard to care about my work.
Your situation, reframed
AI interpretationDisappointment here is natural; you wanted this and worked for it. But two separate things are hurting: losing the role, and watching someone else have it. The first is a setback you can learn from. The second is comparison, and comparison keeps hurting for as long as you feed it.
The dichotomy of control
AI interpretationYours to act on
- Asking for honest feedback on why you were not chosen
- How you treat your colleague in his new role
- Deciding whether the price of that kind of role is one you want to pay
- The quality of your work this week
Not yours
- The decision, and the reasoning of the people who made it
- Your colleague’s strengths, connections and luck
- What others in the team make of it
- When the next opening comes
The Stoics said
Verbatim from the source · full citationsEpictetus, Enchiridion 25
… If then a man gives up the obolus, and receives the lettuces, and if you do not give up the obolus and do not obtain the lettuces, do not suppose that you receive less than he who has got the lettuces; for as he has the lettuces, so you have the obolus which you did not give. In the same way then in the other matter also you have not been invited to a man’s feast, for you did not give to the host the price at which the supper is sold; but he sells it for praise (flattery), he sells it for personal attention. Give then the price, if it is for your interest, for which it is sold. But if you wish both not to give the price and to obtain the things, you are insatiable and silly. …
Seneca, On Anger 3.31
… What he gave me he was obliged to give to somebody: he brought out nothing from his own pocket.” Rather than speak thus, thank him for what you have received: wait for the rest, and be thankful that you are not yet too full to contain more: there is a pleasure in having something left to hope for. Are you preferred to everyone? then rejoice at holding the first place in the thoughts of your friend. Or are many others preferred before you? then think how many more are below you than there are above you. Do you ask, what is your greatest fault? It is, that you keep your accounts wrongly: you set a high value upon what you give, and a low one upon what you receive.
What this means here
AI interpretationEpictetus, Enchiridion 25
Epictetus treats every kind of advancement as something sold at a price. In his example, the price of a dinner invitation is flattery and attendance on the host; in a modern workplace, the price of a promotion might be visibility, longer hours, time spent on internal politics or a skill you have not yet shown. The passage leaves you with two honest questions: did your colleague pay a price you did not, and is it a price you want to pay? If yes, you now know what to work on. If no, you have kept something too, and you have not received less.
Translation note: An obolus was a small coin worth very little; preferred before you means chosen ahead of you.
Seneca, On Anger 3.31
The run of grievances in this passage could be heard in many offices today: I got one promotion but wanted the bigger one; I got one honour but not the next. Seneca’s diagnosis is that the pain comes less from what we lack than from where we are looking. Fixing your attention on your colleague’s new title makes your own position feel smaller than it is, and quietly turns a colleague into a rival. His remedy is to keep your accounts honestly: notice what you do have, and what you have already been given.
Translation note: The praetorship, the consulship and the twelve axes were rungs on the Roman ladder of public office; read them as the steps of a career.
Both passages separate the event from the comparison. Epictetus asks you to see the promotion as a transaction with a price, which takes the sense of injustice out of it and leaves you with a practical choice. Seneca asks you to stop measuring your lot against one person’s, because that measurement is what turns disappointment into resentment. Neither asks you to stop wanting to progress; they ask you to want it with clear eyes.
One action for today
AI interpretationWrite it down
This week, ask your manager for twenty minutes on what the role required and where you fell short, and write the answer down as a price: the specific skills, visibility or responsibilities it demanded. Then decide on paper whether you will pay that price over the next six months, or are content to keep what you have instead. Congratulate your colleague in person; it costs little and stops resentment from setting.
A line to carry
“Give then the price, if it is for your interest, for which it is sold.”
— Epictetus, Enchiridion 25