December 5, 2025
No man will ever be happy if he is tortured by the greater happiness of another. Seneca does not warm us up. He just gives us the truth directly. Comparison ruins moments that were completely fine two minutes earlier. It turns gratitude into dissatisfaction. It steals joy before joy even settles in.
For me, comparison shows up as pressure. I see someone doing well and suddenly I feel like I should be doing more, sleeping less, achieving faster and holding everything together with superhuman patience. It is nonsense, but also very familiar nonsense.
I have tried to talk myself off this ledge a few times. In The Difference between Joy and Happiness, I wrote about how joy sits deeper than circumstance. And in The secret to happiness; it’s wanting what you already have, I reminded myself that happiness is not waiting somewhere in the future. It is hiding in the life I already have.
Right now my life is loud, messy, loving and demanding. Three kids. A house that never fully stays clean. Work that travels home in my head. A calendar that never feels empty enough. If I compare that to someone else’s highlight reel, I will always come up short. Not because my life is lacking, but because I am comparing my reality to someone else’s filtered version.
Happiness grows where attention goes. If I focus on my own life, it expands. If I focus on someone else’s happiness, mine shrinks. That is what Seneca was getting at. He was not warning us about jealousy. He was warning us about where we place our eyes.
This season of my life is imperfect and full and real. It does not need to compete with anyone else’s version of full or happy. It just needs to be mine.
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