“I think people are afraid to witness other people being happily themselves because they don’t know who they (themselves) are,” Richard Miller.  Humans operate in fear a lot so when we see something we don’t know or understand, the brain takes over and tries to make as much sense out of what we see as possible—and we can only make sense of things based on our experiences and context.  So the less we understand something, the more we develop emotions around it as a protective mechanism.  Fear makes us label things we may not understand in a way that, again, is based on our context and not necessarily on the truth.  When we see people succeeding in a way contrary or “other” than what we’ve accepted as what needs to be done, we feel resentment.  Al of this is based on comparison and what we can see in other people’s lives.  We are creatures who need to protect our egos so if we see someone doing better than what we are (or what we perceive as better than what we are doing) then we have a tendency to compare and feel weak and even angry.  It’s hard to see someone with what we want. 

Instead of looking at the situation as “they have what we want,” we need to look at the situation and appreciate that we are in proximity to someone who has what we want which means we are able to attract that as well.  That means we are emitting something along the same wavelength.  It isn’t about competition anymore—that’s reptilian brain operating, fighting for survival of the ego—and we are survival based creatures which means we are prone to comparing ourselves to others so we are aware of any potential threats.  The reptilian brain can’t tell the difference between ego and actual threats so it struggles to let go of the drive to prove and win.  Winning meant survival at one point (you either kill the mammoth or are killed by it) and we’ve carried that competition over into other realms.  Sometimes we compete for things we don’t even want just for the sake of winning.  So if we see people doing well but not “better” than us, it’s ok.  But this behavior is a limiter because we never see the expansive side of being around people who may have achieved more than we have.

There really is the point when we have to shift that focus inward and start asking what will make us feel successful, what makes us feel whole, what makes us feel present?  It even starts with something as simple as, “Why does this person’s success bother me?”.  It takes a lot of effort to honestly understand that these behaviors hold us back and to determine what it is that we really want.  It takes an even longer time to stop looking on the outside, to stop that comparing, to stop the fear that other people being themselves somehow impedes us from doing the same.  There are plenty of opportunities in this world to create the vision we see—we are meant to take our gifts and create those visions.  We don’t all have to have the same vision.  We don’t all have to go for the same dream.  We aren’t all meant to operate the same way.  If we learn to be happy for those who are happy being themselves, we are on the right track to finding that happiness ourselves.  Find who we are, focus on the freedom of our own mind, thoughts, dreams, and ambitions, and that energy will develop into something far greater than being jealous and limiting other people’s actions.  We find the joy in creating peacefully, and creating peace within.  What we witnessed in others we now embody ourselves, and we become an example for others as well.  Focus on our own desires and dreams and the rest of the world’s opinions don’t matter and we can happily be ourselves.