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Don’t Focus on Keeping Others Down

Focus on building yourself up

Shefali O'Hara
2 min readAug 5, 2022
Photo by Felipe Simo on Unsplash

There is an Igbo saying — Onye ji onye n’ani ji onwe ya.

It means, “He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.”

People are naturally competitive. And many of them would rather spend their energies sabotaging you than focus on their own progress. I’ve seen this screw up romantic relationships, family dynamics, friendships, and businesses.

If you are the owner of a small business and you see this behavior — you need to nip it in the bud.

While a small amount of competition may be healthy, too much is destructive.

There is also the spiritual and emotional cost.

When your goal is to hold another person down rather than to lift yourself up, you give rein to the worst parts of your own nature.

Civilization is a fragile thing and small actions can lead to huge repercussions.

The good thing is — this works in the other direction as well.

A small amount of energy directed at improving yourself? Done consistently, you can vastly improve your life.

A little time spent each day being kind to others — it creates harmony in your environment and over time will…

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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