A big part of our personal baseline of happiness is based on our relative comparison to the world around us. Basically - we are only as happy as is appropriate to the level of happiness we believe the people around us are. In the most laymen terms - we are constantly comparing to what we know but we typically don’t know the whole story. Even when we’re aware of this shortcoming, we still seem to measure our own happiness and success by comparing ourselves to others.

Studies show that bronze medal winners are happier than silver because they are comparing to the baseline of almost not ranking and the silver medal winner is more likely to be a bit disappointed because they’re comparing their baseline to ALMOST winning gold. Generally, we wouldn’t want nice cars or decent jobs or great educations if the society around us didn’t put value on that shit. We’d never buy name brands if we didn’t see other people - that we have deemed successful and happy - with those brands. 

Comparison is the thief of joy, but in a lot of ways it’s also the creator of it. 

So stay conscious of this shit, if you can and recognize when your baseline you’re using to compare yourself is unrealistic, unattainable, or just plain unattractive to you. Tomorrow I will continue this relative comparison series with some more examples from my real life and some ways to combat it’s tendency to make us feel like we’re lacking in comparison to the world around us. 

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