Reality 101 #6

It’s almost impossible to understate how much of our satisfaction in life is based on the way we compare our situation with that of those around us. Let’s say that I am stuck in a really hard, dirty job that I hate. The pay is low, so all I can afford is an old mobile home with trashy furniture and an old junky car that barely runs. I would feel pretty dissatisfied with my life as long as I was living in America. But if you gave me those exact same conditions and transferred me to many parts of the world, I would suddenly start to feel pretty good about the ways things were going.

Your neighbors would notice your life and they would be very jealous of you. “You see that guy over there? That house he lives in actually has electricity and running water. He can even afford a car. Boy, has he got it made.”

I suspect that something like this is going to operate even in hell. There will be people in hell who will be saying, boy, this is really bad, but at least I’m not over there. It’s much hotter over there. Compared to them, I’m really not doing so badly.