Stop trying to ‘Keep up with the Joneses” (they don’t exist!)
Sometimes it takes a while for things to either filter down into my current field of vision and this is one of those times.
Brian Kim has an important post on his site about how one stops comparing themselves with others. It’s important because far too many people (myself included) have gone into substantial debt while trying to live up to and bet the ideals that society has set of success. As Brian states:
From elementary to up until high school, it was all about appearance and popularity. After that came the comparisons of universities fellow students attended, if any. Then came the all too popular financial barometer. How much money do you make? What kind of material possessions do you own? What’s your marital status? How many friends do you have? And on and on and on.
He goes on to give suggestions and advice on how to break the pattern and regain control not only over your life, but your finances and mental state of well being.
He even goes so far as to illustrated how much of a vicious circle the entire situation really is:
What most people don’t realize is that the Jones’ are too busy keeping up with the Smiths and Smiths are too busy keeping up with the Browns and the Browns are too busy keeping up with the Millers, etc.
I would add two other possibilities:
- The Joneses simply don’t care about your little ‘competition’
- The Joneses are trying to also keep up with you, thereby escalating the competition to an extremely insane level.
The other aspect to consider is this: you might be trying to out do something that doesn’t even exist. Chances are, the oneupmanship scenario is all in you head, the Joneses don’t actually exist!
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