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Q: “What if being successful means wrecking someone else’s career?”

May 12, 2008

A: First of all, if you are purposefully going out of your way to connect your success to someone else’s failure, then you are an ass hole and you deserve to get kicked in the shins. By a horse. Secondly, for you normal people, your success really will not preclude anyone else from being successful. It may preclude them in being successful in the exact same way as you, but that’s like denying a sip of water to a fish in the ocean; get it out of your head. The fact that you’re thinking this, or that someone else is making you think this, is clear evidence that you are thinking too small. Finally, you have to ask yourself: how important is it to you to win “the right way?” And as I can almost hear the reverberations of “Very important!” as you all answer that question as one, I offer you a corollary: “Right way as determined by whom?” You? The company? Societal standards… as determined by the liberals, social democrats, republicans, fiscal conservatives, capitalist pigs, the middle class, the wealthy, USAToday Infographic, or by the population as a whole like on a referendum? It’s a funny thing about ethical standards: they look bright as day from way back yonder, but get up close and try to put your finger on an ethic, and you’ve about as much luck of succeeding as finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Do everything you can to be a good person. Try to be ethical and give the other person every chance to succeed on his or her own. Just don’t sacrifice yourself without asking for something in return. Don’t let anyone convince you to have somone else’s sleepless night!


 

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