gatekeeping opportunities
By: Hana Shabira
Tags: Friendship, Gatekeeping, Career Paths, Self Help, Self-awareness

so get this

I am the least competitive person, ever. If we were to play a game and I lose? I won’t ask you for a rematch. Growing up as an only child, I have this sense of security in myself that I didn’t need to seek excellence for attention. I receive plenty just by, you know, existing. That’s why school rankings never fazed me.

My dad did say what’s important was I did my best. So, that was my best.

Now that my bubble of security has miraculously popped, I see that everything is a competition to everyone.

My roommate is very competitive when it comes to board games. We were playing monopoly with some of our friends one winter night — for the entire night I hear her maniacally laugh whenever her dices rolled a perfect 6–6 or when one of the other players landed on her hotel. It got pretty bad when she started making fun of the people who were losing. Thank god no one was hurt during the game.

I just laughed it out because I know how she really is, this competitiveness just sometimes brings the worst out of her.

And it’s true competitiveness brings out the worst in people.

This story is a story from this guy who knew this guy who knew this other guy and definitely not from my social circle. hope that was believable enough.

Let’s just say person X wants to be a part of this very exclusive secret club. Secret club has lots of perks — you’ll receive compensation, experience and piggy back rides from Chris Evans. They just found this out so naturally they applied and joined the club.

However, person Y told person X that they want to be in a club that gets them exactly the perks of secret club. Instead of telling person Y about secret club and asking them to join the club together, person X decided to not say anything in hopes that person Y never finds out therefore reducing their competition.

This kids, is called gatekeeping. And it’s a horrible thing to do to your friends.

I know, someone is going to call me out saying that gatekeeping is what indie kids do whenever someone who listens to The Chainsmokers said they like Fleetwood Mac. Gatekeeping comes in all shapes and sizes. You can’t gate keep the term gatekeeping!

According to the limited google search I did for this mini article, Gatekeeping is essentially filtering information to only a certain amount of people or just none at all.

I have seen people gate keep things both online and offline. The worst type of gatekeeping for me, is gatekeeping opportunities. And I was almost the gate keeper.

I saw and internship opportunity at a really cool institution in Jakarta, due to COVID-19 I can’t fly back home. This internship was so perfect, the timing was also right. The class I took last semester can help me boost my knowledge for this internship. I texted my mom to show how bummed I was, she advised me to tell my IR friends back home about this internship. I was confused, why was my mom suggesting me to give up this opportunity to someone else. A little voice in my head told me not to do it, because if I can’t do this internship no one can. I was set to not saying anything, I text back to my mom about how I’m worried this kind of opportunity only comes once in a lifetime.

Then she said, “well then maybe this one is not meant for you”.

At first I was pissed, how can an opportunity this big and this perfect, not meant for me?

I caught myself slipping, why was I so defensive over something that I don’t even have yet. More importantly, who am I to decide if something is meant to be for me. It would be unfair of me to block opportunities for my IR friends, who knows! maybe this internship was meant for them. I can’t just take that chance away from them, it wouldn’t be right.

Friends are supposed to help each other. If you consider your friend a competition, you need to re-examine your friendship and your insecurity.

My big break will come to me at the right moment and time.

Happy growing.

B