When we feel things aren’t fair, when we feel someone got a step up that we deserved, when we feel we write better than someone else yet they got published, we stand at a crossroad. At that point, we have a decision to make.

To feel we should get what someone else got, or to feel someone else wasn’t as deserving, we tend to grip hold of a feeling we call entitlement. At that point, we can decide to move on, direct our energies into progressing, or we can wallow in a sense of unfairness. That feeling of life being unfair can gravitate into bitterness, then a desire to bash those who managed to achieve what we wanted and didn’t.

Then we start hunting for reasons to lash out, we fuss to social media, and we channel ourselves into thinking we were short-changed. We wind up disliking others for their success.

All that energy is wasted and stolen from being productive, from finding opportunities, from improving ourselves so that we, too, can be productive.

Avoid the spiral of feeling negative. Applaud those who do well, study them, and work to improve. When we fuss and argue about feeling robbed, we’re only hurting ourselves.

Just keep trying. Everyone succeeds at a different speed . . . assuming we keep looking forward instead of grumping about what’s happened in the past.