"Don't waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind"
About this Quote
Jealousy is framed here as not just ugly, but inefficient - a bad use of a scarce resource: attention. Mary Schmich, writing as a journalist, leans into a newsroom virtue that also reads like a survival tactic for modern life: keep your eyes on your own assignment, not the rival desk. The line works because it punctures the fantasy that life is a fair, trackable competition. It concedes what jealousy feeds on - the feeling that someone else is "ahead" - then flips it into a destabilizing truth: the leaderboard is constantly changing, and half the time you are the one benefiting from someone else's comparison.
The subtext is gently ruthless. If status is fluid, then envy is a kind of superstition, a belief that another person's win is a permanent verdict on your worth. Schmich's phrasing is plain, almost parental, which is part of its sting: no grand psychology, no moral sermon, just a brisk reminder that you are burning minutes on a story your life won't remember.
Context matters. The quote comes from Schmich's 1997 column (later popularized as "Wear Sunscreen"), a piece that anticipated the self-help language of the internet before the internet perfected comparison as a business model. Read now, it lands as an early warning about algorithmic envy: curated success, constant updates, endless chances to feel behind. Her solution isn't positivity; it's realism. You're ahead. You're behind. Either way, jealousy doesn't help you run.
The subtext is gently ruthless. If status is fluid, then envy is a kind of superstition, a belief that another person's win is a permanent verdict on your worth. Schmich's phrasing is plain, almost parental, which is part of its sting: no grand psychology, no moral sermon, just a brisk reminder that you are burning minutes on a story your life won't remember.
Context matters. The quote comes from Schmich's 1997 column (later popularized as "Wear Sunscreen"), a piece that anticipated the self-help language of the internet before the internet perfected comparison as a business model. Read now, it lands as an early warning about algorithmic envy: curated success, constant updates, endless chances to feel behind. Her solution isn't positivity; it's realism. You're ahead. You're behind. Either way, jealousy doesn't help you run.
Quote Details
| Topic | Motivational |
|---|---|
| Source | "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" — Mary Schmich, Chicago Tribune column, June 1, 1997 (contains line "Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead. Sometimes you're behind.") |
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