u/Striking_Role_4344

We just don’t want other people’s stuff on us.

Hi Reddit,

I’m new to posting, so feel free to educate me on how this subreddit works.

I (25M) and struggling to cope with the idea that my best friend (26M) was handed a job for free, gets payed 100k, and then complains that he never has anything to do at his job, that he’s so bored.

I’m happy for him, and I know it’s not his fault. It infuriates me when he complains about it, but it makes me even more upset just the idea of it that I struggle so much to land a job (just got laid off and am unemployed) that even pays half that much, and I know even if I do I likely have to do 10x the work and stress. He’ll often complain how he has nothing to do at work and the job itself is easy, simple accounting. Just today he was talking to our other friend about the tik toks he was sending him because of how bored he was at work. The FIRST thing he did when he got to work today was scroll tik tok.

For some more context, he has very little interview skills and job experience. The job reached out to him on LinkedIn seeing that he worked at another branch of the company he used to work at after they laid him off and they were wanting to interview him for basically the exact job he did before. It’s a golden opportunity. He didn’t even have to negotiate or learn how to interview well - the job just provided him everything he needed. They offered to pay him more than what he asked for and just handed it to him.

While I hope this had nothing to do with it, it’s worth noting he is a white man and I’m Hispanic. The systemic issues in the US are hard to ignore for me even if it didn’t play a factor. The narrative of the white man being paid a lot of money to do nothing and being handed stuff while the ethnic person has to work for everything and receive nothing is objectively present and can get hard to ignore.

I’m in a different career field than he is, but I have good credentials, job experience, a good resume that’s optimized, and good interview experience, but even with a good background I can barely find anything.

So, how can I cope with this? I go to therapy once a week, but it doesn’t feel like it’s enough with all I have going on struggling to know my future financial security. I’d love advice on how I can approach this feeling because it sucks and it feels like it will never go away unless I also find something that can sustain my life and future that doesn’t make me sell my soul to work. I know people say “don’t compare yourself” but it’s easier said than done when I’d trade places with him in a heartbeat and wants what he (or anyone in that situation) has.