There is enough out there for everyone, enough value to create, enough space for more than one person to win. The leaderboard has no ceiling. Someone else getting on it does not push you off.

But there is a distinction worth making. Some things are infinite. Ideas, creativity, meaning, impact. These multiply when shared. Someone else building something great in your space does not necessarily take anything from you.

And some things are finite. A specific job, a specific person, a specific opportunity. If someone else has it, you genuinely cannot have that exact thing. That is just reality.

The problem is that the brain does not always know the difference. It treats the finite and the infinite the same way. It sees someone else winning can still register loss, even when nothing has actually been taken and it actually doesn't even affect you.

That is where envy and jealousy can damage you. By narrowing your focus to what you do not have instead of what you could build. Maybe even wasting your energy trying to block or get what someone else has or will obtain. You cannot create from that place. You can only compete from it.

The bucket

There is a phenomenon called crabs in a bucket. Put multiple crabs in a bucket and none of them escape, not because the bucket is too deep but because every time one gets close to the top the others pull it back down. No crab makes a conscious decision to sabotage. They are just reacting to movement around them.

This can also apply to humans.

The second someone gets close to the edge the others pull them back. Maybe out of fear, because if you know someone else made it out while you are still in the bucket, that might hurt. Comparison has a way of making other people’s progress feel like evidence of your own failure. But pulling them back in does not help you. It does not add anything. You are still exactly where you were, just with company that also could not leave.

The only solution for the bucket is for everyone to go the same direction at once and tip the whole thing over. But then the person who put the crabs in the bucket will be unhappy.

The limitation you create

A lot of people cannot see the overflow because psychologically they are wired to see problems first. They notice what is wrong before what is possible. They worry about things that never happen. Sometimes you can worry about things so much that the worry itself makes it become real. By creating limitation in the mind before they even exist in reality. You cannot build from that place.

And then there are the things that genuinely are limited. A specific opportunity. A specific job. A specific relationship. A trademark. Ha. If someone else has it you actually cannot have that exact thing. That is just reality and it is fine to acknowledge it.

The distinction is knowing which is which. And not letting the finite ones convince you the infinite ones are limited too.

There is enough. Build your thing.