Economists Sara Solnick and David Hemenway recently conducted a survey where they asked participants if they would rather earn $50,000 a year while other people make $25,000, or earn $100,000 a year while other people get $250,000?

Sit down for this one. The majority of people selected the first option. They would rather make twice as much as others even if that meant earning half as much as they could have.

This is completely nuts, of course. Yet other findings in the study confirmed the envious nature of contemporary culture. People said, for instance, they would rather be average-looking in a community where no one is considered attractive than merely good-looking in the company of stunners.

When it came to education, parents said they would rather have an average child in a crowd of dunces than a smart child in a class full of brilliant students.

What is going on here? In his new book “The Mind of the Market,” Scientific American columnist Michael Shermer writes that, “Our sense of happiness tends to be based on positional and relative rankings compared to what others have.”

There’s one problem, however. It doesn’t work.

As the philosopher Bertrand Russell pointed out, “Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.”

Of all the dissatisfactions we face, surely none is more menial than envy. It denies us contentment, is a waste of time, and is an insult to ourselves. Worst of all, it’s completely self-imposed.

“Envy is the most stupid of vices,” wrote the novelist Honore de Balzac, “for there is no single advantage to be gained from it.”

Face it. We all know people who are smarter, fitter, richer, funnier, more talented or better looking. But so what?

Thinking this way only keeps you from appreciating your own uniqueness and self worth, things that, not incidentally, do lead to greater happiness. Especially when combined with a strong sense of purpose.

As Shermer writes, “Feeling ennobled is a pleasurable emotion that arises out of this deepest sense of purpose. Although there are countless activities people engage in to satisfy this deep-seated need, the research shows that there are four means by which we can bootstrap ourselves toward happiness through purposeful action.” These include:

1. Deep love and family commitment.

2. Meaningful work and career. (See The Key to Perfect Freedom.)

3. Social and political involvement.

4. Transcendency and spirituality.

Note that psychologists have yet to discover the route to happiness by comparing ourselves to others. (Although it never hurts to measure yourself against your own ideals.)

Concentrating on your own fortunes – and improving those of others – is guaranteed to generate more satisfaction than sizing up the Joneses. Besides, if you knew everything the other guy is dealing with, you might prefer your own circumstances anyway. (Remember Richard Cory?)

In other words, don’t begrudge the other guy his blessings. Count your own, instead. As Mark Twain said, “Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.”

Carpe Diem,

Alex

This article was originally published at Spiritual Wealth
March 31, 2008