Someone else’s success is easier to celebrate when you stop making it explain your worth.

Other people’s good news becomes hard to hear when it is being read as a verdict on you. If someone’s promotion or house or child means something about where you stand, congratulating them costs you, and the reluctance that follows feels like envy but sits closer to self defence. Their life is evidence about their circumstances, not a score you were entered into.

When the tightening comes this week, notice it and let it pass without believing its conclusion. Say the congratulations plainly anyway. Afterwards, if something you genuinely want was exposed, take that seriously on its own terms.