Everyone is richer than me
During counselling sessions, people often want to know how they compare financially with others.
Many people are insecure. The family’s annual income is around $200,000, they save a few thousand a month, they bought a house when they were 30–35 with little loan.
On one hand, they think they earn a lot compared to the average, but on the other hand, they look around and see that everyone else has more than they do. A bigger car, a bigger apartment or house. Somehow everyone around them is more successful than they are. What could they be doing wrong?
You haven’t done anything wrong, don’t worry.
Your problems source is from the fact that you consider your micro-environment to be the normal, average environment. You probably live in the best available place according to your income and wealth. If it’s an apartment in Detroit, it’s there, or if it’s an apartment or house in one of the luxury neighborhoods of Los Angeles, it’s there. Even your kids go to school according to this.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. (The problem would be if you wanted to live in a neighborhood that was too expensive for you. Unfortunately, many people do that too.)
But you need to realize that in you’re in the best neighborhood available to you at the moment, you are the average or even more the median.
This means that half the people in your micro-environment simply have more money than you. Deal with that. Being average is not a bad thing at all, especially in a neighborhood that is otherwise out of reach for 95% of people.
People are more likely to notice how many children are brought to school in brand new Mercedes and BMW SUVs, but they don’t notice at all how many children are brought in 18-year-old Toyotas or by bus.
On Facebook, you notice how many people you know have been on holiday out of the country, but you don’t realize how many of them couldn’t go on holiday at all because they couldn’t pay their loans.
You notice how many people seem successful, not how many people are struggling or suffering around you. You only notice the successful people at first and only notice their successes, but not their problems.
So either stop comparing your own situation to those around you or, if you insist on doing so, do it properly: how many people in my city or district are worse off than me? How many people in the country live worse than me? And how many billions of people around the world would trade places with me in a heartbeat?
About seven and a half billion people would like to live in the same material conditions as you and trade your problems for theirs, so stop looking at what you don’t have that other have.
Be grateful and happy for what you have and forget what you don’t have.
Another thing that fools you is not knowing what’s behind those big houses and expensive cars. How many family problems, excessive debt, worrying about loans and job loss.
Forget what others have achieved or what you think they have achieved based on their appearances. You should be grateful for what you have and be happy with what you have achieved.
You should be successful compared to yourself and not in compared to others.
