We are constantly measured against others: compared, sized up, and weighed like bananas at a fruit stand.
As a boy, teachers in my public school assigned seats according to each youngster’s academic excellence. Even without that and the particular misfortune of those in the last row, my classmates made plenty of comparisons.
Who was the smartest, the cutest, the most popular, the strongest, the tallest, the most likely to succeed? A bit later, the markers applied to the best smile, the toughest guy, the best legs, and the fastest runner. Further on, the standard became owning a car, a lovely apartment, admission to the finest college, and on and on and on.
Indeed, every day, we read our mirror’s prediction of what people will say about our appearance. Who doesn’t?
Our ancestors chose mates by making some of these comparisons. They selected strong and brave protectors, canny partners, and mates whose health and capacity for survival could be judged by externals. These included shape, musculature, and facial features, no matter how much these qualities were thought through.
Status among our siblings, neighbors, and coworkers eventually came down to a handful of attributes. Money remains our shorthand for success and the ability to live the life we want for ourselves and our children.
There will always be someone with more. The fast track to unhappiness is to watch and listen for signs of our fluctuating status. Shooting for the ladder’s top rung is the path to making yourself #1 in misery, like a person running a race on a treadmill. One or several others are always ahead of you.
The commercials declare you should “be all you can be.”
Money is not the only measure. In most situations, you get to decide. If you have a fine friend, he, by himself, is precious. So is a clear sky on a gorgeous day and the birdsong greeting the morning. In a meaningful sense, we are rich as long as we don’t further pollute the atmosphere and harm the songbirds’ habitat.
There is gratitude and wisdom in this.
The cliche tells us we come into the world with nothing and leave with nothing unless we insist on filling our grave with every penny we possess. Grave robbers will find it anyway.
The YouTube video above (“When is a Retiree Considered Wealthy?”) provides a 2023 description of how your accumulated wealth compares to all those who retire in the USA.
Consider this a way to determine your standing on the financial ladder I mentioned. Curiosity says you will take a look—your choice.
I don’t discount the value and necessity of dollars. However, as the YouTube video indicates, there is an enormous discrepancy between the folks with fistfuls of paper currency and almost everyone else. I’d be happy to pay higher taxes if it would be distributed to the neediest individuals.
That said, I’ve reached a point of caring about finances less than ever. Lucky as I am relative to most, I have seen too many who make themselves unhappy via endless contrasts.
Occasionally, I try to notice whether they are carrying yardsticks and forever measuring, as I think they are. This group includes “some of my best friends,” as the old joke goes.
There is no built-in shame in accepting less than the best of every material thing or thinking King Midas, the man with the golden touch, was an idiot. That is unless you bow down to the fellow with the fattest wallet.
My attitude about money is simple. I give some away to charities and family, pay my bills, and have lived in the same home for 39 years. Having more money and spending more of it won’t make me happier.
Having worked at a summer job in an un-air-conditioned factory long ago, I understand something about one of the less attractive alternatives to the way I made a living, not to mention the men who had to stay after I was gone.
On my deathbed, I am confident no one will hear me say, “Gee, I wish I had that $25 back.”
But if things work out as I hope, I will speak of love.
May our greatest currency be how deeply we have loved, how much we have helped and how we have inspired others to become their best selves!
Life stops being a competition the moment we decide we step out of those games, and life becomes so much more satisfying when we appreciate those lovely I tangible things that ultimately make life worth living!
Overcoming difficult pasts to create loving relationships and family where we can enjoy one another’s company. The simple pleasures of peaceful comraderie. We can have all the money in the world and still feel empty if we don’thavethose lovingrelationships, while we can also have modest sums of money but with those peaceful relationships we will feel whole.
I’ve come to appreciate the simple things and no longer feel an intense need to compensate for the lack of loving relationships by accumulating more stuff… except art supplies… there’s never enough of those!
The last line was perfect, Tamara. Art supplies! Yes, we must get our priorities straight!
Lol! Yes, we absolutely must have our priorities straight!! 👏
Yes, yes. I love all of this, Dr. Stein but especially your ‘last line’…speaking of love. Not stuff. Not the material accumulations. Just love. Thank you for the reminder. Too many I know are in a perpetual state of seeking, gathering and there’s little comfort in the things. It will always be the ‘who’ and time well spent with them. xo! 😊
Thank you, Vicki. Your comment prompts me to add that the things don’t talk, and the accumulation of them usually just sits there so that we become accustomed to them, the initial uplift from obtaining them departs, and we go back to the store or the art gallery and repeat the cycle. A repetition of the childhood experience of losing interest in the toys soon after Christmas.
I see that comparison…repeating the acquisition cycle…trying to “fill up”. Thank you for that!
Dear Dr Stein, this article hits home. I have made many comparisons of myself to siblings, friends, strangers based on signs of wealth. I am 58 and have completed 8 years of trauma therapy (probably a year to go) with a psychiatrist who has been my Dr for 23 years. My comparisons since working with this Dr have changed. I always wanted to be a stay at home mom. My husband of 35 years and I have two adult sons. I was able to be home with them, volunteer at school, etc. I did work part time from home but the degree I had gave me the possibility of working 60 hour weeks and a much higher income. After growing up in a dysfunctional family having a close happy family of my own is priceless.
To break the cycle usually baked into unhappy families is no small accomplishment, Pat. I’m glad the article hit home and that you added an essential example of why we must face who we are and who we wish to be in order to obtain fulfillment and spare our children a repetition of our unhappiness. Be well.
Ahhhh… the things we learn when it’s almost too late!!
I agree, Laura. The best we can do is to keep learning and adapt. Thanks for the truth of things, a precious commodity that was always valuable, now even more.
As you’ve noted, “There will always be someone with more.” Your post brought to mind the wisdom from “Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann (circa 1927): “If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.” I have found this to be true.
Indeed, Rosaliene. I didn’t know this quotation. Given the distribution of wealth, I imagine we would encounter less vanity in the world but for the prominence and power of these folks. Of course, the Bible tells us all is vanity, which suggests self importance isn’t present in only one group. This takes the topic in a different direction from the one this essay addressed, but your familiarity with the Bible is greater than mine, so perhaps I am missing something in this.
What a wonderful post and perspective. Your making yourself #1 comment reminds me of the game of King of the Hill. It’s lonely and precarious at the top of that game, fending everyone else off.
There is no doubt on my mind that love will be top of mind for you and all who surround you at the end of your life – because that’s the way you live and encourage others to do the same.
I’m so grateful that I get to feel your influence, even if from afar! Thank you, Dr. Stein!
I haven’t had a kinder and more generous set of words since beginning to write this blog. Thank you, Wynne.
Our world seems so preoccupied with personal growth and self, that unless we recognize that a more utilitarian view of ourselves is essential for all living things to survive and flourish, the top of the hill will only offer a better view of the wasteland beneath it. Love of self is necessary, but we need something more akin to those 2000 year old ones suggesting we should love the other as thyself, especially now.