One reason most people live unsuccessful lives has nothing to do with health catastrophes, financial ruin or bad luck.
It’s entirely self-engineered, yet more common than mosquitos in a swamp.
It’s called envy.
Hating on someone they’ve never met and know next-to-nothing about, simply because they feel intimidated by their apparently superior lifestyle.
The destructive futility of that mindset means they’re using mental bandwidth that could be deployed on something useful.
Whoever scribbled the biblical reference to envy being the rottenness of the bones was observing a universal human characteristic.
Light up your schmartfone at daybreak and scroll the toxic feeds of anti-social media like a paunchy middle-aged masochist begging for jump-leads to the genitals.
See how many times you get hit with the stabbing pain of inadequacy, frustration and existential angst.
Yet still you scroll.
Why are they so much better than me? I must read more.
Keep going and you’ll find not only boast posts. Hapless losers hoping to ignite a cult-following chime in with bile, anger and name-calling, mostly fuelled by jealous rage.
And there are many reasons why envy is so widespread in the digital age:
> It’s easy to get triggered by other people’s highlight reels on social media
> Everyone exaggerates their wins while glossing over their failures
> Looking for shortcuts to success, we resent those who’re already there
> It’s easier to slag-off successful people than it is to get there ourselves
> Attributing their achievements to good luck excuses our lack of effort
> Claiming they must have done something bad makes us feel good
> We can quickly gain support for our position in our online communities
There’s also a yearning to scale the highest summit of moral high-ground, whatever that means.
That’s why overtly wealthy people are subject to so much spite and derision, forged in the mistaken belief that when someone wins, someone else has to lose.
I saw a well-meaning lady recently make a hit-list of capitalists for her tribe to spew hate on. The usual folks – Bezos, Musk, Gates, Ellison, Zuckerberg et al.
She also raced to paint the “white privilege” cliché across all of them, conveniently ignoring the fact that most of them started out broke, with the only privilege being the accident of birth that spawned them in a relatively buoyant western economy.
Reality check: business titans form the engine room of the economy, spreading their impact and legacy around the world, supporting individuals and their families on an unprecedented scale.
When I built my tiny enterprise as a financial consultancy, I employed over 200 people with spouses, children, mortgages and lifestyles, thriving largely through their employment with me and my business.
Check this out:
> Amazon: 1.5 million employees
> Microsoft: 228,000
> Oracle: 164,000
> Musk: 110,000
> Meta: 68,000
Sure, those guys got rich, but it’s not like they’re the only winners, right!?
My advice if you’re feeling inadequate when you spot someone a few steps (or a quantum leap) ahead of you right now:
1: You know nothing about their journey beyond what they’re disclosing
2: Being successful doesn’t mean being bad. Most people remain good.
3: You’re still alive, so you have time to become successful yourself.
In the immortal words of Max Ehrmann:
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
For sure, take inspiration, guidance and motivation from the shoulders of giants.
But envy?
Nah, waste of time.