You are passed over for a promotion that goes to your colleague.
Take this situation apart. Each piece goes in one box: yours, or not yours. There is no third box, and almost nothing falls in one piece.
Yours
- Whether you let this decision devalue your two years of effort.The effort has been delivered and the outcome was never its measure. Whether two years of work become worthless because somebody else gets the title is a judgment, and you are the one who passes it.
- Whether you congratulate your colleague.Entirely yours, and probably the most expensive item on the list. Skipping it punishes nobody but you.
- Whether you ask what would have been needed.One question, yours to ask, with an answer you can use next time. That is the difference between being passed over and knowing why.
Not yours
- That the decision was made before you heard about it.A decision taken in another room at a moment you were not in it. You may have views about it, but it is done and it was never yours.
- What your manager thinks of your ability.A judgment inside somebody else's head. You can influence it and you cannot determine it, and only the second makes a thing yours.
- That your colleague is better at being visible.His quality, not yours. What is yours: whether you learn something from it or carry it as a grievance for years.
The reasoning. Notice what happens once the six pieces sit side by side. Everything that is yours lies in the future or in your own effort. Everything that is not yours sits in another person's head or has already happened. That is not a coincidence, it is the shape almost every disappointment has. Anyone who sees only “I was passed over” is left with one lump that nothing can be done with.
- Do not seek for things to happen as you wish, but wish for them to happen as they do.Epictetus
Nearby situations
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