One of the things that is preventing us from becoming better and happier is envy, which is one of the deadly sins.

We need to free our reins from never ending comparison with others.  When a person from a developing country looks at a person from a developed country, he cannot understand why that person could be unhappy since from his standards, the person already has everything he does not have, and which he considered to be necessities for having a good life.

However, more often than not, we are unhappy and under pressure, not because we don’t have enough, but we yearn to have more, because the neighbor has more.

This is underscored by a quote by a famous executive in the IT industry who is believed to have said, “It is not enough that we succeed.  Our competitors have also to fail. “

This was also believed to have been true even in communist countries.  This was supposedly an anecdote that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev told US Secretary of State James Baker III about the difficulty Russia has in its psychological transition to capitalism, after so many years of communism…

” A Russian peasant finds a lamp by the side of the road, and rubs it. Out pops a genie.  The genie tells the peasant he will grant him any wish.

The peasant tells the genie, “you know, I have only three cows, but my neighbor Igor has ten cows.”

“Would you like twenty cows?” , the genie asked.

“No, ” says the peasant.” I want you to kill seven of Igor’s cows”.

I am not saying we should not benchmark ourselves, our abilities, and our performance with others.  That is healthy competition, and spurs you to do better.  But do we need also to compare also the size of our diamonds?