Why does someone else’s success make us feel so crummy? Why do some people take pleasure in other people’s successes, and other people become miserable with envy? We all know comparison is the thief of joy, so why do we still get jealous when scrolling through friends’ vacation photos or seeing other people achieve big things or dealing with toxic colleagues? And most importantly, how can we be inspired by success instead of drained by negative, useless, downward spirals of jealous thoughts?
In order to free ourselves from insecurity and jealousy, we must first develop a deep understanding of what insecurity is, where it stems from, and how it spreads its little seeds of doubt and fear. Once we understand the nature of our own insecurity, we can recognize when it rears its head. Once we recognize it, it can no longer hold its subversive grip over us.
Isn’t life a funny thing? We’re all striving, working hard in business and on ourselves. We’re all on a journey to succeed and grow. And yet, so many of us are ashamed of where we are right now on our journey. We’re jealous of other people who insecurely show off. We’re all growing, and yet we’re all embarrassed about it.
The fact is, wherever we are on our path in life, we will never be enough if material goals alone are what drive us. Someone else will always have more. We could always have more. Without spiritual goals, like gratitude and presence, we can’t appreciate what we have or see the beauty that is all around us.
“If we’re not careful, we may end up living our life for a thousand other people, but forget the one person who truly matters.”
The Social Media Trap & Performative Living
We live in a time where there are entire stores that only sell products specifically because they will look great in social media posts. People are living their whole life for other people’s approval and jealousy. If we’re not careful, we may end up living our life for a thousand other people, but forget the one person who truly matters. And wonder why we feel disconnected from everything.
Redefining Success: Your Personal Journey
Remember that being on a journey of growth IS success, no matter where you started or where you are. You know your battles. You know how far you’ve come and how much you’ve overcome.
If this year you are the most you you’ve ever been, if you follow your heart and consciously create a life in alignment with what matters most to you, you win. Life isn’t a competition with anyone else.
Practicing Awareness of the Jealous Ego
Let’s practice recognizing that fearful, jealous ego when it pops up. Let’s be grateful for our awareness of those fearful and jealous emotions.
Then let’s turn our attention to the root of those emotions: our insecurity, and let’s practice gratitude for our awareness of our insecurities because awareness is the first step towards growth and change.
Transforming Shame into Gratitude and Healing
By turning the shame about our (mis)perceived flaws into gratitude, we can:
- Heal our negative self-image
- Be happy for others and ourselves
- Bring about positive change from a place of strength and acceptance
- Be happy knowing that we’re living the life that was meant for us
The Art of Gratitude
No matter how dark a situation is, there is always something to find gratitude in. Discover how shifting your perspective transforms every challenge into growth and unlocks lasting inner peace.
When Having Enough Still Doesn’t Feel Like Enough
We can put food on the table for our family, we can put a roof over our heads, and we can have every single need met. But if we don’t have a certain number in the bank account that we believe will make us peaceful and happy, we think we need to worry. We think we need to be stressed; we need to be afraid of disaster at any second. And many people live their whole lives with everything they need, and yet their whole lives they were stressed and worried.
So to have everything we could ever need and want in this universe is to simply trust our ability, trust that we can make anything come true that is possible. And it really comes down to whether we see the future as scary and dark, or optimistic and bright.
When we are comparing ourselves to people who have more than us or a better life than we do, comparing ourselves to someone who has less than us can feel better. It can bring us some relief. But we are still lost in this comparative mindset, and we are still creating mental disturbance, mental chaos, useless mental activity and noise that is still causing us to suffer and to miss out on a peace that is available right here and now beneath all of that useless mental activity.
And comparing ourselves to people who have less than us does make us feel better and can be a nice relief from feeling like victims. But it is still an escape, an attempt to deal with suffering and pain that is underneath the surface. And when we can truly let go of that pain, when we can look at it without fear or anger, then there is no longer a need to cope or to make ourselves feel better. And so that’s the true freedom: appreciating what we have and being able to enjoy our lives.
How a Perfect Life Turns Into Misery
It’s a shame that we could have a perfect life, we could live the most idyllic, peaceful, beautiful life in beautiful nature, in the most wonderful, loving village, and then all of a sudden learn about some neighboring village that just got electricity or television, or they struck gold, and now they’re flying to Hawaii. And now our perfect life becomes a source of misery and suffering.
So the more we catch ourselves falling for that comparison trap and falling into that competition, when there is no competition, and bringing other people who have no importance, no significance, no relevance to our situation whatsoever, we need to catch that incorrect thinking. We need to make sure we are competing with ourselves, with our past selves, making sure we’re on track to become our future selves.
“Any worry, any thoughts of someone else—whether it’s someone who has more than us and it creates suffering, or someone who has less than us and it creates self-righteousness—it’s all a distraction.”
Instead, we can just focus on ourselves, on what we need to do. That is the way to appreciate what we have, get to the life we want, and have the skill of presence and appreciation to actually enjoy it.
Moving from Fear to Trust and Oneness
When we start to trust ourselves, we can see that any possible future we want to create is possible. And we can trust that in each moment we will do what is required in that moment to bring about that future.
If we are constantly worried about the future, if we feel separate and disconnected from that future that we wish to get to, that is when we begin to feel afraid of losing what we have and not having what we need.
When we can really just get out of our head, we can see how everything around us is connected. We can see how the world works, and we can see how we can manipulate that to achieve our goals. And so it really takes an understanding of Oneness and a recognition that everything is connected, that we already have everything we need to create any kind of future we want.
