The Thief of Joy

I like to gamify my life where I can. Duolingo is a big one. My Spanish might not have improved much but, wow, I stack those points. Another big one for me is my driving. Mainly where gas mileage is concerned.

I’m always excited when I get a good number of miles per gallon before I fill up my tank. My car will show me how well I am doing while I am driving. I found that I do my best when I stick to the cruise control while braking and accelerating the least I can. I can usually average between 32 and 34 mpg, and depending on how well I do, it can go to 36.

But this one time, I was doing a lot of highway driving and managed what I thought was an impressive 39 mpg! Many times, I am able to start a given tank and get around 45 mpg, but when you add city driving, it starts to even out. So that high of a number at the end of a tank felt like an accomplishment.

Until I realized my wife’s car would get 47 mpg without trying.

Thinking about what she averages took away all the delight I had started to feel. The efforts I took in my gas guzzler would never match that of her hybrid. 

But that’s the thing, she has a hybrid. While they are both cars, comparing the two is not apples to apples.

Recently, a friend of mine took a year off to go to Southeast Asia. I thought, wow that would be so cool… I wish… almost forgetting I had just taken a year off of work to kick around Costa Rica and Hawaii. And then bounced around Europe.

My boss told me he was flying to Asia on a business trip. I asked if he used lie-flat seats for long-haul flights. He was uncharacteristically sheepish and said he did, but he paid with points. I found myself jealous that he had a business that racked up so many points. However, if points were all I was after, I could probably make a company that broke even but would churn out enough credit card points to get me lie-flat seats.

I was listening to a fascinating interview with a divorce lawyer who was talking about some of his clients who were looking up to celebrities and how happy they looked together on social media. However, their followers were so confused when the relationship came to a close, and the couples asked that you respect their privacy. Another fun part of the interview was when he mentioned a client who took their plastic surgeon a photo and said they wanted to look like that.

But the photo given was photoshopped.

It’s like me thinking I could get the results of my wife’s Pruis from my Honda. Unattainable.

What would make things worse is when what you are comparing yourself to and potentially obsessing over is false to start with. 

I recently deactivated my Facebook and Instagram accounts, but when I was active, I would see posts from people I knew to be miserable, but you would think everything was going amazing in their lives.

While at a wedding recently, we were asked to write well wishes and words of wisdom to the bride and groom. I had written about communication and maybe about making sure to close the cereal box and wrap it tight (air is the enemy of freshness), but on the drive home, I thought this was better advice for a new couple. 

Focus on your relationship. Everyone else has hard times, don’t think they have it any better than you. It might be in a different area but everyone suffers somewhere. And for goodness sake don’t compare yourself or your spouse to someone else.