How many times have you compared yourself to a friend or colleague because of a quality that makes you secretly envious: their wealth, their professional success? In university courses, this type of self-evaluation is called "social comparison".
Most of the time, this process is not voluntary. It is an "implicit comparison" 1, an automatism that is triggered in your brain, even if you don't want it to be, and that repositions the inner cursor of your self-esteem.
When you see your absolutely sublime, brilliant colleague being congratulated by the boss, two things can happen in your brain:
In this so-called "upward comparison" 2, where you compare yourself to someone who is better than you, then either:
__> it motivates you to do better. Good!
___> it depresses you. In other words: your self-esteem drops and you feel inferior, sometimes even feel like s*it and believe that you have failed in life.
The ancient Stoic sage Epictetus reminds you of something essential with his simple but profound words:
the true battle you will surely win
lies within yourself.
~
“You can be invincible if you never enter a contest in which victory is not under your control.
Be careful not to get swept away by appearances when you see someone achieving higher status, wielding significant power, or being highly regarded, and mistakenly think they're living the dream. true happiness comes from what's within our grasp, eliminating the need for envy or jealousy. Your aim shouldn't be to hold high office or positions like official, senator, or diplomat, but to be truly free. And there's only one route to real freedom: letting go of concern for things outside our control.”
~
Imagine for a moment that life is a big theater.
All around you,
actors and actresses are playing their parts,
some in shiny clothes that reflect their success, power and wealth. From the wings of your existence, it's easy to envy these adornments and believe that they're your ticket to happiness.
The one who has observed the essence of life, who has penetrated the backstage where human tragedies and comedies play out, whispers to you with the wisdom of those who have deciphered the riddles of life: "Look closely, what you envy is often just an illusion." The glittering successes, the thrones on which some seem to reign, are sometimes just a mirage, a poorly made ornament that perhaps hides an emptiness or an inner turmoil.
Isn't it strange that behind the smiles, behind the images of perfection that some give of themselves,
there are often tortured hearts,
souls in search of meaning?
Without wishing for the misfortune of others in order to feel better about ourselves, it's important to realize that the fame we envy so much may be the veil of a much more complex, much more human reality. Behind every success we idolize is a path full of hurdles, doubts and perhaps even sacrifices that you, I, we may not be willing to make.
true happiness isn't what you think you see in others. true happiness is freedom; it means playing your own part, according to your own rules.
This freedom
means letting go of the opinion you have about this or that person.
If you're completely honest, you sometimes feel a little jealous, don't you? This jealousy has the unfortunate tendency to cloud your judgment and make you think that happiness is a champagne flute that others drink right in front of you, leaving you thirsty.
Envy, jealousy, those feelings that drag us down, arise when we fix our gaze on the path of others, forgetting that our own path can be just as rich and fulfilling, even if it's less visible.
— But mmmarcus, does that mean I shouldn't have ambitions, that I should give up on my dreams?
you may ask, frowning. Far from it, {{username}}. Stoicism teaches us to pursue our goals wisely and to focus only on what is really within your power.
The most beautiful victory is the one you win on your own terms.
The next time you're envious of someone else's success, think about this theater and ask yourself:
What role do you want to play?
Do you want to play a supporting role in someone else's story or be the leading actor in your own life?
true freedom and serenity come when you realize that the most valuable success is the one you define for yourself, in line with your values and goals, away from the hustle and limelight.
See you in next article my friend.