67. Has anyone actually got it together?

This site was initially set up to chat all things wellbeing and mental health. 

It’s kinda veered away from that, and these days is more just some general musings on life. Though today, we return to its roots. Yay! 

On that, I imagine that for many of us, one of the things we want in life is to not feel consistently miserable for a long period of time. 

I know, that’d be nice right!?

Though I can’t help but feel that a lot of our internal wiring is set up to achieve exactly the opposite of that. 

One of those ‘internal wirings’ is our fetish for comparing ourselves to other people. Or more accurately, negatively comparing ourselves to other people. 

We often hear how [insert relevant person] is smashing/loving/thriving/making the most of life, and generally has their shit together. And comparatively, we don’t.

However, if we have a long/deep enough conversation with pretty much anyone, it soon becomes apparent that that’s not usually the most accurate of conclusions to come to. 

Though not coming to accurate conclusions about other people’s lives seems to be something that our brains are quite good at. 

We can look at one element of someone’s life, and come to all sorts of assumptions about their whole life based on that one factor. 

Basically “Wow, they’re good at that one thing, they must be good at everything!”

That can obviously be the case, but I’m not sure it often is. Finite time on this planet means we have to choose to do some things, and therefore choose not to do others. Choose to be decent at some things, choose to be shite at others. 

Meaning that something like the following is possibly more accurate “Ah, they’re good at that one thing, they must be useless at other things”

It’s kinda like a game of Top Trumps. 

When playing Top Trumps, we quite literally place someone’s entire value on one variable. 

Although on a one-off hand, Mr Burns’ ‘smartest’ score may be impressive, we can’t judge his whole existence based on that one factor. 

However, this is exactly what often happens in the real world.

If we’re Homer Simpson, and we neglect everything other than this ‘smartest’ variable when looking at our lives, then although all-in we’re doing pretty well, it may leave us feeling exactly how he’s looking on the card… 

Though to assess the real strength of the card, we need to look at the range of factors at play. 

On this ‘choose to be decent at some things, choose to be shite at others’ point, an example of this is ironically from a real life Mr Burns type character, Elon Musk.

A few years ago, when asked to evaluate Tesla’s recent performance, his response was “This past year has been the most difficult and painful year of my career. It was excruciating. This has really come at the expense of seeing my kids. And friends.”

In terms of price paid to get where they are, it’s a not too dissimilar point to Kylian Mbappé’s response when asked what he would do if he was invisible for 48 hours:

I'd spend my Two Days outside, that's for sure! I can say that without thinking. Go eat quietly in a brasserie, go out, go with friends, party quietly, without anyone to come see me. The next morning, a nice brunch in the sun on a terrace, there you have it. Simple things in life. I’d pay so much money now to be able to do this kind of things, which is normal for most people. I’ve lost spontaneity, the spontaneity of being a human being." 

Although I’m sure the money would be nice, the often unseen costs that come with it, not so sure... 

I suppose comparison is known as the thief of joy for a reason, and is why common wisdom warns us against it. 

It’s a fair point, but I just don’t know if the human psyche is always wired that way. Especially in this day and age where we’re constantly surrounded by other people’s best bits. 

However, ‘best bits’ always come with a cost. The finite time point made earlier means there’s always stuff we could be doing instead of what we are now. I think we see it all the time:

• If we’re on a health kick, we look longingly at those on the pints 

• When it’s weekend after weekend of social plans, we get desperate for a night in 

• If we’re doing a bit of travelling, we can miss the stuff we like about home

• If we think our career is the be-all and end-all, we may feel like we haven’t seen the world...

And so on. 

Regardless of our situation, I think there’s always going to be other stuff we want. And therefore, potentially a degree of jealousy to those who have got it. I don’t think that that’s a bug of being a human, but a feature. 

As such, maybe other people’s lives aren’t as impressive or desirable as we may initially think. Perhaps the trade-offs, sacrifices, and costs people have paid to get to where they are, aren’t ones that we’d be willing to chin anyway...

In which case, spot on. Or as Mr Burns would say, eeeexcellent.