Consider This Whenever You Start To Feel Jealous About Someone Else’s Life

A superpower I wish we all had.

You know what superpower I wish everyone had?

The power of looking into someone’s mind and seeing all of the bullshit they’re dealing with in their lives the second we start to envy them.

Let’s call it, the curtain opener.

Now I don’t want this to be one of those posts that talks about how people never know what goes on behind the scenes, but in all honesty, envy really comes down to one thing:

How well we present ourselves in front of other people.

Let me explain.

Some people are just really good at hiding their troubles.

“Your daughters are perfect.”

That’s what a friend from church said to my mom while we were at dinner one time.

Her family is going through a lot right now, especially with her children. I guess she noticed how me and my sister acted in public and perceived it as who we are in private.

That’s when I realized, huh, we do present ourselves very well to strangers. Just think about it. We don’t talk much in public; we’re very shy. We act cordial when spoken to. And we seem smart (which sometimes we don’t think we are) in public based on the fact that we go to college for free.

If I put myself in her shoes and had all of her family struggles — which are pretty traumatic — It’d be easy to look at two strangers you only know from the outside as perfect.

In short, I come from a family of anti-socials who present themselves like Beyonce in public, but Kanye West in private.

But as soon as our friend said me and my sister were perfect, all I could do was nod my head in disagreement. That’s so far from the truth. If only she saw what we’re like at home.

Some of the most successful people in the world suck at presenting themselves as successful.

We all know the famous antics of Kanye West.

He’s said a lot of dumb things: advocating for Trump, insinuating slavery was a choice, tweeting “Bill Cosby is innocent”, etc. If you meet Kanye West for the first time and never heard of him before, you’d think he’s just a mentally ill patient who forgot to take his meds. Forget about College Dropout.

Meanwhile, the nice waiter at Olive Garden with amazing customer service presents himself as miles more successful than Kanye West ever could. But he probably makes, I don’t know, a millionth of what he makes.

You know what I mean?

It’s not about success. That’s not what makes us envy people. It’s how we present our success.

This all comes down to happiness.

How can someone present themselves as successful?

Well, how can an apple present itself as a blueberry? Trick question. It won’t.

Deep down, me and my sister are happy in our own skin. Sure, we still have our lives ahead of us, things we need to work on, and goals we want to accomplish. But to keep it simple, we honestly just don’t give a f — k about what others think of us. That translates into how we are in public.

We’ve never cared to be anyone else but ourselves. That’s just how we are.

When you’re happy with yourself, you tend to seem like you’re a successful person, no matter how much money or status symbols you have.

If you feel like you’re worth a million bucks, everyone else will too, because in reality, everyone’s just watching the show you’re presenting to them.

Final Thought

I guess what I’m trying to say is that everyone has a veil over their face. Their faces are always covered by what other people think of them.

Some people are perceived as successful while others are perceived as deadbeats. You never know where the chips will fall.

But it’s all based on happiness in the end. When you’re happy with yourself, it exudes as success in the weirdest of places. Again, you’d think that waiter at Olive Garden has a private yacht or something and Kanye West works on it.

People usually envision success as a monetary metric.

Uhhh. Hello? When will enough money be enough? Probably when we run out of trees.

However, happiness is something that’s forever. As corny as that sounds, you’ll never present yourself with success inside and out without happiness.

It’s what keeps everyone going.