We hate it when our friends become successful

Unconscious echoing is inevitable and increasingly can be anticipated. An example occurs in Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety, where the author writes: "There are few successes more unendurable than those of our close friends.'' If this sounds like a sentiment that, say, Oscar Wilde might have expressed, it is because in 1881 he did: "Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success."

Gore Vidal, for his part, offered this variation in 1973: "Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something inside me dies.'' Moreover, Wilde's phrase was subsequently adapted by the British pop singer Morrissey in his song We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful. De Botton does not credit Wilde, Vidal or Morrissey, and there is no reason why he should. After all, what they are all expressing here is something that is universally true and presumably always has been.

"Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies" – Gore Vidal, The Sunday Times Magazine, 16 Sept 1973

The sentiment itself is one I've fallen prey to at times, but mostly over matters of personal happiness rather than fame, fortune, etc. (in large part because most of my friends don't suffer from the problem of too much money to spend and all that).

Friends' success based on decisions you don't like -- when they're successful based on doing something you find lame -- that surely breeds resentment, since in some small stupid sense it's a "betrayal."

Yus. In many ways I think I'm getting to a really nice place with my own writing -- and in other areas as well -- that I would not have been able to be at earlier. Taking it reasonably easy but always trying to keep busy as I go is yet paying dividends.

This is made worse when after 6 months he gets called into his boss's office, gets a massive raise and a promotion - when I (and most everybody in the industry) has had to work like a dog for at least year only to be given a modest salary adjustment when you finally goad your superiors into taking care of your performance review.

Fuck i hate him.