我最近參加了一次會議，在會場碰見一位女士，我們只是點頭之交，多年未曾聯系。當時，她坐在桌前給自己的新書樣本簽名，面前是蜿蜒的長隊，從展位邊一直排到會議中心深處。

在這周偶遇以前，我還曾毫無來由地想起過這位女士?！八龑懙哪潜拘≌f不知道怎樣了？”我當時好奇地想。是取消出版了？還是沒寫完？我想說，這些純屬莫須有的猜測，只是我自作多情的猜想，沒有任何根據。

我猜想她的書或許會出版失敗。這種可能性讓我潛意識里感到開心，不過我不愿承認。眾多粉絲圍繞她簽名的一幕雖然在我心中縈繞數小時揮之不去，但其實我對此人并沒有怨恨不滿。

競爭意識可能激起我們內心反復自省。見到別人事業騰飛，我們就會自問，有什么致命缺陷阻礙自己取得別人那樣輝煌的成績？是天資不夠，還是更嚴重的問題——我們太懶、太害羞，還是總踩錯點所以抓不住機遇成就大事。

我先是自責在社交網站推特（Twitter）上發帖太少，然后又怪自己沒認真管理推特賬號，往往得出的結論是應該更努力工作。所以，一旦自怨自艾階段結束，和更成功的人比較一般會激勵自己上進。（比如這次，由于隱隱懷疑跟那位女士相比我太失敗了，這才會全神貫注寫這篇專欄。）

可如果要依賴小小的嫉妒心讓自己保持優勢，顯然不是長久之計，甚至根本就算不上一種策略。通常改變自己看待世界的角度，甚至對自己講些激勵性的豪言壯語，其效果會更好。

為什么我會希望那位相識的女士出書失敗，經濟蕭條時期推出勵志書籍的作者早有解釋。拿破侖·希爾創作了1937年的暢銷書《思考致富》（Think and Grow Rich）。他若在世，應該會批評我形成了一種“稀缺心態”。這種心態是指，認為我們身邊的愛、金錢和認同是有限的，其他任何人的成功都意味著，留給我的這些資源會變得更少。與“稀缺心態”形成鮮明對比的是“富足心態”，即認為資源非常充裕，人人都能得償所愿。希爾認為，成功人士通常擁有“富足心態”。

相信理論上的富足普遍存在，確實有助于克服嫉妒心，但如今保持這種心態頗有難度。因為我們生活的時代有遠比過去豐富的渠道，來獲悉別人的各種進展。這是當今社會文化的陰暗面，在這種氛圍中，人們頻繁地更新著自己的狀態。在希爾那個年代，想了解競爭對手怎樣行事，人們必須親自出門打探，得走訪城鎮跟人直接交談。那時的人當然不會像現在這樣，獨自坐在桌前上網就能了解對手的動態，其間還得時不時看到中學好友的曬娃照。即使有人懷著堅定的富足心態，面對可以隨時用谷歌搜到的各類信息——別人最近怎樣、最近去了哪、有多少粉絲點贊，也必定會產生某種焦慮。雅各布·西爾弗曼在新書《服務條款：社交媒體與持續互聯的代價》（Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection）中把這些信息稱為“持續可見指標”。

有趣的是，我發現，內向的人比外向的人更有可能在社交媒體上產生挫敗感。有研究顯示，對于高敏感的人群，沒有隔間的開放式辦公室會影響他們最佳工作狀態的發揮。心理治療師內奧米·沙拉蓋指出，沒有隔墻的“保護”這類人將不得不為自己劃定“心里邊界”來控制分心和干擾。而對周圍環境不敏感的人在此類環境里會表現得更好。人們還未意識到這也是少數職場優勢之一。

歸根結底，同自己比較才是唯一有益的做法。我花了幾天時間，終于不再為那位熟人的粉絲長隊傷神。但期間我很努力地集中精力讓自己不去介意，或者更重要的是不去比較。諾曼·文森特·皮爾1952年出過一本書，名為《積極思維的力量》（The Power of Positive Thinking）。雖然此書的建議值得商榷，但也有先驅之舉：肯定了今天人們說的“專注力”。皮爾在書中寫道：“我建議一天至少兩次腦子里什么都不想，如有必要可以多幾次。清空大腦中的恐懼、怨恨、不安、追悔和愧疚。只要你有意識地努力放空大腦，情緒往往就會舒緩?！?/p>

皮爾認為，每個人每天都應該留出至少15分鐘保持絕對平靜。皮爾應對競爭的策略可能會讓有些人覺得古怪。他建議養成為別人祈禱的習慣，而且要反復祈禱，毫無偏見。不論是街頭擦肩而過的陌生人，還是透過火車車窗看到靜立于庭院中的女士，都要祈禱。祝愿他們身體健康、生活富足，一天比一天過得好。

這樣，你可以專心的完成一些實實在在的工作，而不是被負能量所束縛。到了一定時候，你很可能不再那么關心別人的舉動，因為你的成就已經足夠令人嫉妒。

這位女士的書已經問世?，F在，我希望她的書成為暢銷書。因為一旦成真，我會想沒準我對新書大賣亦有貢獻呢，這種猜測同樣毫無根據，但卻絕非尖酸挖苦。（財富中文網）

譯者：Pessy

審校：夏林

I recently attended a conference where I saw a woman I know slightly but haven’t spoken to in years. She was sitting at a table signing advance copies of her new book as a long line snaked around the edge of the booth to the depths of the convention center.

This woman had come to mind apropos of nothing the week before. “Where was that novel she was working on?” I wondered. Was the publication cancelled? Was she not able to finish it? These speculations were totally groundless, I should add, based on nothing but my overactive imagination.

The possibility that she had failed pleased me more than I’d care to admit. I have no grievance against this person whatsoever. Nonetheless the sight of her many fans haunted me for hours.

Competitive feelings can spark intense rounds of self-reflection. We see someone whose career is taking off and then ask ourselves what fatal flaw prevents us from generating the dazzling output they do. Either we’re not talented enough, or, worse, we are too lazy, shy, or contrarian to capitalize on it.

After beating myself up for not Tweeting enough, then for not really caring about Twitter, I usually come to the conclusion I need to work harder. So, once I stop moping, comparing myself to more successful people revs me up. (Only the creeping suspicion that I was a loser compared to this woman, for instance, got me to focus on finishing this column.)

But relying on petty jealousy to get your priorities in order is not a strategy that works long term—or even a strategy at all. It’s often better to change your perspective on the universe, even going so far as to tell yourself useful lies.

Depression-era self-help writers had a ready explanation for my hope that my acquaintance’s book was canceled. Napoleon Hill, author of the 1937 bestseller Think and Grow Rich, would have accused me of nursing a scarcity mindset—a notion that there’s only so much love, money, and recognition to go around, so any person’s success means there will be less left over for me. Hill contrasted that view with an abundance mindset, which contends that there’s more than enough for everyone to have everything they want. Successful people, he argued, had an abundance mindset.

Believing in some abstract universal abundance can help quell jealousy, but living it out is a tremendous challenge at a time when we have vastly more access to information about how other people are faring. This is the darker side of a culture of incessant status updates. In Hill’s time, you had to go out of your way to learn how a competitor was doing. You had to walk around town and conduct in-person conversations. You certainly wouldn’t be gathering this intel at your desk, alone, between looking at high-school friends’ baby pictures. Even a person with a robust abundance mindset is bound to have some anxiety over all of the readily Google-able data about how people are doing, where they’re doing it, and how many followers applaud them for it—these “constantly visible metrics,” as Jacob Silverman puts it in his new book, Terms of Service: Social Media and the Price of Constant Connection.

Anecdotally, I have found that introverts are more likely to feel defeated by social media than extroverts are. And studies have shown that open-plan offices make it harder for highly sensitive people to do their best work. Without walls, they have to manage distractions, interruptions, and “psychological boundaries” instead, says psychotherapist Naomi Shragai. People who are oblivious to their surroundings function better in such environments. It’s one of the few career benefits of being unaware.

Ultimately, the only reliably useful competition is with oneself. I stopped being bothered by my acquaintance’s long line of fans within a few days, but it took concentrated attempts at not minding—or, more importantly, not comparing. “I recommend a mind-emptying at least twice a day, more often if necessary,” Norman Vincent Peale wrote in his 1952 The Power of Positive Thinking, a book of questionable advice that nonetheless contains this early nod to what is today called mindfulness. “Definitely practice emptying your mind of fears, hates, insecurities, regrets, and guilt feelings. The mere fact that you consciously make this effort to empty your mind tends to give relief.”

Everyone should insist on no fewer than 15 minutes of absolute quiet every 24 hours, Peale claimed. Peale’s strategy for handling competition then takes a turn that may strike some as odd. He recommended that people develop a practice of praying for others, repeatedly and indiscriminately—a stranger you passed on the street, a woman in her backyard whom you glimpsed briefly out the window of your train car. Wish them health, prosperity, and a better tomorrow.

The point is to free yourself of negative comparing energy so you can get some actual work done, at which point, you probably won’t care so much about what other people are doing. You’ll be in the zone.

Now I wish for this woman’s book to become a bestseller, so when it does, I can enjoy the equally groundless, but non-bitter, speculation that I contributed to its success. It on sale already.