Do you ever question your life because there are others with better lives?

When you look closer you usually find that those people you’re admiring have problems of their own hidden away.

Self-acceptance is important. You can always try to improve your life but you’re never going to be someone else.

Different people have different priorities and values in their lives. I have no interest in power or fame. Unlimited cash flow would be nice, so I could travel the world.

Some people are born with extraordinary talents or beauty. Most of us are pretty average, and are fortunate if we can find a vocation that we enjoy and that also pays the bills. I do believe that I am as deserving of a luxury lifestyle as anyone, but I also appreciate that my life is incredibly comfortable compared to most people in the world.

I am mostly disappointed by people who seem to have no clue about the rest of the population and how they struggle to get through each day – whether it’s people who live in poor or war-torn countries, or if it’s the clerk at the department store who has to clean up the mess that these self-absorbed twits leave behind.

depends on what your values are. if you think that celebrity and money are the most important things, then yes, you are likely to be jealous of someone like Angelina Jolie. These attitudes just keep the wheels of capitalism and consumerism spinning. Being unhappy with your life and seeking to distract yourself from it is just the way the system wants us to be.
I think it makes more sense to be grateful for what you do have, rather than obsessing about how your life could be like that of a celebrity. Myself, I
am grateful for a job I enjoy, good healthcare, good food, and special people in my life. It’s nothing to sneeze at. Many people around the world and throughout history would have loved to have these things.
If I only compare myself to myself, and realize that I am doing the best i have ever done, and am happier than I’d known it was possible to be, I have no need to be envious of other people or wish for another station in life.

A lesson I had to learn about 27 years ago:
Don’t compare your insides with someone else’s outside.

When I found myself 23 with three kids and a husband who was bipolar and couldn’t hold down a job, I would look at other women who didn’t have to worry about the utility bill or the rent, or a babies ear infection because the money was there to pay it and think, “I’m just as pretty, and just as smart as any of these women. How did I end up here?
Life is much better now, but man those were some dark days.

I don’t… this is the one I have, if I’m not happy with it then I need to figure out what I can change to make it better. As to your example, I have never envied Angelina in the slightest:-)

Nope – I figure my life is my own responsibility.

We all physically get what we get in the grand genetic crap-shoot. While I’ll never look like Brad Pitt, I can also be thankful that I don’t resemble the late Herve Villechaise (“The plane !!....The plane !!”)

And I try to keep in mind that there might be a billion people in this world who might be envious of ME, for whatever reason..

From the standpoint of ‘life situation’, we are all pretty-much living out our past choices. If someone decided to marry a lazy, selfish cluck, the person to blame for that would be…..

No, my life is great, my life is my own, my life is unique…I love my life.

I do once in awhile, when I see how lucky I am while other people are starving to death and/or have no place to live. I wonder why I got the good life and they didn’t.

I will be honest with you and say yes. Though it is not in the same way as what you are describing. I do not wish to be Angelina Jolie. I do not wish to be anybody but me. But yes, sometimes I see people living, what appears to me, to be a great life. These are not celebrities, but people I know. Maybe someone is travelling the world with one big smile on their face the whole time, maybe someone else has more friends than me, and there’s definitely always someone who is better than me at something.
What I say to myself when I feel like this, is that I am still young and I am not settled anywhere yet. When the days are dark, I lose myself in Weltscherz. When they are good, I like my life and look with positive eyes towards the future.

I admit that I have, but sometimes this is just luck and you can’t do anything about it. There are people living way worse than any of us, where they have to worry about what they’re going to eat next and where it’ll come from.

I was reading a similar thread of answers on another website and a guy born to wealthy parents essentially said he understands how lucky he is, but he can’t do anything about it, and he would be wasting the luck he was given if he didn’t use it (he meant going to college and becoming successful etc).

If you were born in a relatively normal first world environment, you have so many advantages that others don’t already, too. So work with what you have.

There will ALWAYS be someone who is smarter, better looking, better off than you. Make the most of who you are, because you are smarter, better looking and better off than many people. Part of it is a matter of opinion; part, a matter of definition. You got the cards you were dealt. How you accept them and play them is up to you. If you let envy destroy you You lose. Somehow I don’t think you’re a loser. Count the pluses,

I would like to have a companion and I can’t find one currently. This is why I get sad when I see people so called “better” than me.

To paraphrase an old Jewish adage my mother and grandmother used to say – if everybody in the world could put their lives into an enormous pot and then reach in and pick a new one, they would chose their own joys and sorrows.

I have a great family, a great child, and a great fiancé. I’m very lucky.
Are there things I would change? Of course. I would love to have a better paying job, I hate living from paycheck to paycheck. There are a few things I’d like to change about my looks, I’m 42 and it’s starting to show.

Yes, sometimes I do get upset and sometimes that discomfort is a catalyst for change, but sometimes it is just a reminder of why I didn’t choose that life.

There are plenty of people who seem to have it all who are unhappy. You have to learn to be happy with who you are and what you have right now. It doesn’t mean that you can’t strive for more, you just have to be happy on the now.

No, I try to do the best that I can in this life that I have. What I do is, I would look at people with their success as motivation to achieve my success but I do not feel sorry for myself. I try to fight off negativity as much as possible.

We all have issues arise at some point & you can fight or lay down to die. I’m a fighter for my own happiness!

Never. I don’t compare my life to that of others. That way lies madness.

Well, right now it is really difficult, because there is a very direct relationship. I told him I was separating from him, and taking custody of our child. He agreed to this in principal. Then, he never paid child support payments or called about making plans for summer vacation, but he spent over 30,000NOK on a Ducati sports motorcycle and he has been spending all his time with that. He didn’t file a change of address form so I could file for any public housing or child support. He didn’t sign any custody agreement until after a huge fight when I had to threaten him with ‘couples therapy’ because that is what the law demands here (not me… so it wasn’t my threat, but the law of the land, actually) so he signed, but I still have no idea if it is binding and for how long it will be back dated, because if his reluctance to help us. So, he is off, riding his motorcycle, getting loads of vacation pay, buying new glasses (I only dream of being able to afford new glasses and a dentist appointment) and I have NO idea if I will be able to keep me and the little man in the house we are living in yet because he has been so slow with paperwork. He has all summer off work now, but we have only see him three times. He was at a big party last weekend (after I had arranged for him to have time with his son, he decided on the party instead) and this weekend had he had planned weeks ahead, so I knew what was going on, he is spending the entire weekend at a music festival. So, yeah… comparing his choices right now pisses me off like CRAZY.

@cazzie You need a lawyer, he owes you child support, and a good lawyer will get you support and lawyers fees.

Of course he will get mad, but that is his problem, because anything retaliatory he does will get him in trouble.

You owe it to your child to get what his dad owes him.

thanks, @zenvelo but things are quite ‘automated’ here. I will have to wait until I file my case, which I will finally be able to do in a week’s time, to find out if the support can be back dated to the date on the separation papers (even that isn’t the actual date, he dragged his feet there too and so the date ended up months behind the actual time he stopped living here.) I may have to get a lawyer to help with the matters of the house, but I think the local county social services should be able to give some very practical proper help there. The stupid thing here, even with the tax situation is, you have to pay what they say you owe, and then you have to file your claim to see if you can get it back or qualify for help. Money first, then offer some facts and background with loads of paperwork to back it up, then someone will eventually look at it, and then, perhaps, some humanity will be involved. Meanwhile, he continues to live the life or Riley and I don’t know how I am going to get through the 3 week summer vacation because I didn’t get any vacation pay…...(I didn’t start working until the end of November last year, so my ‘vacation pay’ was 10% of about 9,000kr) thanks to the local family welfare office, I have been able to sort out activities for my son for the two weeks I have to work, and then for the few weeks before school starts. The three weeks we have together are still very much up in the air and the budget is looking pretty damn dismal with three weeks off work with no pay.
It just pisses me off that he was able to drag his feet and stop any sort of progress regarding my filing for housing assistance or child support. It just confirms my thinking that he really never did give a shit about me and the kids and his life was only ever really going to be about him and what he wants. Breaking loose and breaking far away is my only goal now.

Yes, but it isn’t so much wanting to be them as it is wanting myself to have some the characteristics that allow them to be ‘better’ than me. I wish I didn’t struggle with depression, optimism sounds nice but I can’t quite muster the hopeful nature it requires, being organized would relieve a lotof stress. That type of stuff. I see friends living like that and feel a bit of envy plus a bit of resentment and anger toward myself.

@tups Weltscherz is my new favorite word.

Yeah. Once while in a standing room only (after I got there) indigent (free) health clinic. I couldn’t help notice that almost everybody there had the latest in cellphone technology and quite expensive looking tattoos, as well as nicer clothes. While getting free doctor visits no less. Thats when I started getting down on myself a bit by wondering what it was I was doing wrong. I was wearing what I thought was my better clothes for this and felt under dressed. with my crappy straight talk phone- no tatts.

No. None us knows what’s really going on in someone else’s life. They may look like everything is rosey but have terrible things going on in the background. I’d rather live my own life and make and fix my own issues than waste time coveting someone else’s life.