The Thief of Everything

How comparison and jealousy steal more than just your joy, but can steal your entire life …if you let it.

We have all heard the phrase “Comparison is the thief of joy”. It is repeated so often because it is true, however I would argue that it has the potential to steal more than just your joy but your life. We live in the age of information or as I see it the age of access. If you have a phone in your pocket you have access to a global passport that allows you to see things from anywhere in the world. This includes other individuals. There are a total of 5.04 billion active accounts on social media platforms. Each of these accounts represents an individual essentially and covers the entirety of the population. Rich people, poor people, famous people, regular people, etc. However the constant exposure to this can result in you both feeling inadequate and lose confidence or it can inversely inflate your sense of self. Both of these are stealing from you, your happiness, self-confidence, and your ability to grow.

Starting with what I believe the single largest factor that has contributed to this phenomena, social media. As I mentioned in the introduction if you have a phone and social media accounts you have unprecedented access to everyone on the platform. I primarily want to focus on instagram due to the fact that it is visual and has a large user base. The fact that it is a visual platform (meaning photos and videos are the primary source content) is a major reason for its success and subsequent addict-ability. Seeing photos produces more dopamine than simply reading words. With the added ability to curate your own feed you are constantly being fed with new content to keep you hooked. And depending on the algorithm you will be seeing content from users across the spectrum of humanity. The problem lies in the simple truth that instagram is simply a highlight reel of someones life, or conversely a lowlight reel. Starting with the highlight reel. So many people will have you believing that you are a loser because the lifestyle they portray on social media is insane. Driving exotic cars, seemingly taking trips around the world in luxury, eating at the best restaurants… you get the picture. It is amplified when that person is of a similar background or age. Im 25 currently, when I see a 21 year old living this lifestyle it can lead me to question if I have taken the best path because I cant currently live that lifestyle. I refer to this as false hyper-abundance. Meaning that these people only posting the best that the world has to offer can poison your mind into thinking that whatever your current situation is, you believe that there is always more. You are never happy because the reality is, someone will always have more. The odds of you doing something to make $1 billion+ is slim. And even then Elon Musk is worth 200x that. The same applies to dating. From a male perspective it has become more difficult to not only find a woman but to keep a woman. When you enter the metaphorical arena of social media you are in a weird competition with every other man on the platform. And from a female perspective why would you settle for an average or above average guy when in the same arena there are multimillionaires, Entertainers and athletes. All it takes is for one of these figures to find your account and send a DM.  Now lets look at the opposite the people that post things that make you go “well, I am definitely doing better than this person”. Things like super personal issues, personal tragedies, and sometimes just the people that lack self awareness on how what they post will be received. This can make you feel good about yourself. You may see an obese person complaining about not fitting in an airplane seat and say to yourself “Im fat, but Im not that fat”.

Comparing yourself to others steals so much from you. The constant comparisons to people that are more successful can steal your ability to be happy or make you equate happiness with a certain lifestyle that you aren’t living, that in actuality you may not actually enjoy in the first place. It can poison your mind similar to porn. I would argue it is a type of porn, Lifestyle porn, Real estate porn, Luxury watch porn… All of these give you a distorted sense of reality and also what success looks like for yourself. It is amplified when someone you know begins to do the same and show the fruits of their labor, some do it with class while others are just flexing. You may find yourself more jealous thinking things like “I know him, he doesn’t deserve this success” or “That person is stupid” you will say anything to diminish this other person to justify your current situation. There is another saying “Jealousy is the only thing that will destroy the vessel that holds it” you could begin to resent this person for no other reason aside from the fact they are doing or accomplishing what you haven’t. Hater mentality. It also steals your self-confidence.

Now for the big question, how can you not let comparison and jealousy steal your life? I think there are several ways to mitigate the impact. The first is acknowledging that Social media is not real. The people posting extravagant lifestyles are making a conscience effort to not show you their flaws and what is going on in their real day-to-day lives. And honestly they aren’t required to. You cant expect someone to post things they dont want to post. Similar to how you aren’t required to post everything, some things are better left exempt from the public domain. You should use social media as a form of entertainment, a tool, and for inspiration. If you can switch your mindset from “Fuck that person, they dont deserve their success” to “This person lives a lifestyle I would like to pursue” you gain inspiration. Not to say there aren’t people that actually suck, but life isn’t fair. I think another great way to not let jealousy creep into your life is to truly know yourself. I will write an entire essay on this at some point but the point remains. If you know yourself and your purpose, then it is much harder to knock you off course in the pursuit of your own goals. The constant inundation of content is simply overwhelming and each time you go on social media it is like a canoe in a hurricane with the amount of distractions that can knock you off the course of your own life.

This post could have been about social media since I addressed it extensively but I think that it is a big factor in todays world that make people the most jealous of others. Prior to social media you had the “keeping up with the Jones’s” mentality but on a much more local level. Your neighbor may have gotten a new car that you really like. Now you can see a kid drive a car that costs your house. Jealousy or envy is also a natural human emotion, and has been the cause of many wars and conflicts throughout time. The key is to acknowledge this, not everything is as it seems and you have no control over other people just yourself and your outcomes.