Keeping Up With the Joneses

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We need to stop focusing on others. We need to stop keeping up with the Joneses. We are social creatures and as such we spend a lot of our time around others. It’s normal then to compare our lives to those around us. We want to be certain that we aren’t missing out on something. We want to be happy just like everyone around us seems to be, so we “need” to have what they have in order to achieve that same level of happiness. Unfortunately, that is not the key to happiness and in reality only causes jealousy, anger, and misery.

The thing is that appearances always make things seem better than they necessarily are: having the newest, most expensive gadgets and being the one that others want to keep up with, doesn’t equate to happiness. And relying on this perpetual comparison to others to satisfy your own sense of self-worth will always be a fleeting solution. Things advance so quickly, that as soon as you buy the newest gadget, there is already the next version being marketed. It is impossible to always be on the forefront without the addition of stress at having to maintain your place on the forefront. And relying on your ability to have the next best thing before those around you have it, in fact only causes you unnecessary stress. You cease to have things because of the intrinsic value of those things to your life instead the focus becomes the superficial value those things have to those looking in at your life. For example take smart phones. The intrinsic value of a smart phone is the instant ability to communicate and to find almost any information you could possibly need all at your fingertips. But the superficial value of a smart phone is needing to have the latest version, not because it has improved significantly from the previous version, but because it is the newest, most expensive model and you want everyone who sees you to know you were able to get it before them. But once you have the newest model, it will only be a matter of months before a newer version will come out. So whatever happiness you may feel at having the best version will only ever be temporary and you find yourself constantly stressed as you try to maintain the appearance of always having the best in comparison to those around you.

And this isn’t just a problem for the wealthy and well-off. The need to compare yourself to those around you is problem faced by every economic class, with everyone eager to show off how much better they appear to everyone else. We all want to be the best, we want others to envy us, and we falsely equate these feelings with happiness. It’s why it doesn’t matter what new thing you get, you’ll constantly desire more because the newest thing can never become newer, it can only grow old.

There is another problem that goes hand in hand with this desire to keep up with the Joneses, it is the fact that not everyone can be the best/be the envy of the town and so they must also make comparisons with those less fortunate. The first goal for most people is to strive to be the best, they look at those who appear to have it better than them and they desire to be just like them or better. But most also know that their circumstances won’t actually get them to that same level, so to help combat their feelings of inadequacy, they compare themselves to those they view as below them. This comparison automatically makes them feel better about themselves because at least they are better than someone, but it also ends up only being a temporary solution. Why? Because the problem is that those below may one day rise above. And if those below rise above, then not only are you not keeping up with the Joneses but you are also falling behind those that you consider inferior. So instead of solely focusing on your desire to have better things, you must also worry about those below eventually surpassing you, and thus you begin to focus on how to prevent those below from obtaining the things you may already have or things that you are still trying to obtain for yourself. You determine that your happiness becomes dependent on others remaining miserable. And so you become jealous or angry at anyone you view as inferior getting any sort of advantage and thus you actively work to prevent those advantages. So instead of solely focusing on the impossible task of keeping up with the Joneses, you also link your happiness to your ability to take something away from someone else. If you can’t be at the top, well you’ll definitely keep those below you in their place.

But again wrapping your own sense of self-worth around the comparisons you make to others (be them more or less fortunate) will never fully satisfy you. You’ll be living in a constant state of jealousy, anger, and fear. Worried about not being good enough, worried about falling behind. And those worries will never go away no matter what you do because we are social creatures who will always live in a society with others. Focusing on others will only lead us to misery. Instead we must look within to find what makes us truly happy and not worry about what everyone else has. We don’t need to keep up with the Joneses to be happy.