Is Everyone Happier Than You?

It’s mid-January, so that means more time spent curled up with a cup of tea, reflecting on life. I came across this quote a while ago and, even though it’s from an 18th-century philosopher, it’s very applicable to today’s social media world, where we’re constantly exposed to other people’s highlight reels, making it seem like everyone is having an awesome life.

If you only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.

~ Montesquieu

This hit home for me last month when Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss from The Ellen Show committed suicide. Whenever I’d seen clips of him on my social media accounts, he just exuded joyfulness. I fell into the trap of thinking he had an awesome life, with his beautiful wife and kids, and that they just danced around the house being happy all the time. Obviously more was going on than was apparent from the outside.

One question I sometimes ask myself to put things in perspective is whether I’d want to trade places with the person, because you can’t just pick one trait or one aspect of a person’s life. It’s a package deal. We envy what we believe others have but they only show us what they want us to see.

Envy is a tricky emotion because it often transforms into resentment without us being aware of it. I envy people who ‘exude’; who radiate energy or joy, but sometimes those people annoy me too – they’re too cheerful or too perky, or I decide that they’re phony or insincere. In those cases, I’m probably subconsciously letting my envy transform into resentment that they have something I don’t.

I also envy people who more naturally fit into the role of wife and mother. My own mom was a ‘milk-and-cookies’ mom who looked after the needs of everyone in the family. She was always there for us and she put everyone else’s needs before her own.

There are two sides to every coin, though, and there’s usually a counter-balancing quality to the one you lack. So, another question I ask myself is whether I’d be willing to give up the opposite quality in order to have the one I envy.

Exude: to display an emotion strongly and openly.

Stoic: not affected by or showing passion or feeling.

I definitely fall on the stoic end of the spectrum. I’m chill. I don’t worry about things. I’m ‘low maintenance’. I stay calm in a crisis. Those qualities have come in handy in life and being ‘stoic’ is part of my identity. I’ll never be the ‘life of the party’, but I can be your ‘rock’ if you’re going through tough times.

My sister and I joke that when the domesticity gene was being passed out in our family, our cousin Sheryl – who home-schooled her five kids and is a master of all things domestic – took our shares. My lowest mark in high school was in Home-Ec. Ray has always done the cooking in our family and, even though I tried to emulate my mom by baking fancy cakes for Nick’s birthdays, I’m pretty sure he recalls how stressed I got over the cakes more than the cakes themselves.

My insecurity about my lack in these areas usually peaks around Mother’s Day when all the talk is about ‘showing appreciation for everything that mom does’ and ‘giving mom a break’. A break from what?

My mom was a wonderful wife and mother, but she gave up a lot of her ‘self’ in the process. She was playing a role that I don’t think was natural for her. She envied my life as a university student and traveller, the things she’d dreamed of doing herself, but that her circumstances prevented her from pursuing.

My mom used to say that from the time I was a toddler I had a ‘will of iron’ and a tendency to get my way. And, although it’s probably not my most endearing quality (selfishness in contrast to my mom’s selflessness), it also means that I’ve lived my life according to my own scoreboard, not someone else’s. So…selfish, but authentic.

The bottom line is, no matter what we do, our kids will have something to talk about in therapy, because if you’re one thing, then you’re not the opposite thing. (My mom, for the record, also questioned whether she’d been a good mom.)

This ‘what’s the opposite quality’ exercise also works well with significant others. If there’s something that annoys you about them, it’s quite likely there’s an opposite quality that attracts you to them and makes them who they are.

That ends the reflective portion of the blog post…now, the ‘highlight reel’.

Nick & Megan spent a week over the holidays in Grenada, courtesy of Meg’s parents. A group of them travelled together, including Meg’s family and another family they sometimes travel with.

Back in Brighton, things have been pretty quiet. Ray is enjoying the less competitive nature of the pick-up curling league he’s switched to, and I’m enjoying my volunteer work at the school. We’re both a little tired of the grey, drizzly January we’re having. If it’s going to be winter, it might as well be cold, snowy and sunny.

Sarah and I finally got out for a spa day at Ste. Anne’s that I gave her for her birthday almost a year ago. It was a rare gorgeous sunny day so perfect for alternating between the hot outdoor pools, cold plunge pool, steam room and sauna.