Happiness – Budget Bliss: Bucket List

Comparison is the Thief of Joy

Published on May 6, 2025April 13, 2025 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

It is easy dear reader to compare ourselves to others especially since others splash their lives up on social media for all to see. Granted, they are curated versions of themselves, but it’s so difficult to remember that. We see people more successful, more well traveled, in the perfect job, having the perfect relationship, enjoying their children, wearing the latest fashion, doing whatever it is we wish we were doing. The algorithm is merciless in that it shows us that which we engage with and of course we are going to engage in the very things we long to have and thus the viscous cycle.

In focusing so much on all the things we do not have, we lose sight of the things we have. We are lost in the mire of have not. Not only that but it robs us of the joy of the things we previously had. How often have we finally received that which we asked for, full of joy and wonder only for a few months later to be grumbling about it?

When I received a rather cheap car that had been through a hailstorm and was close to 20 years old, I was incredibly grateful and amazed at my luck. After all, having not had a car before, having any car was a dream. However, it wasn’t long before the twinges of comparison started. It was by no means a looker in the car department with its dents, faded color and sagging cloth. It was clearly old and not only that but also dented from the hailstorm. When I was interning for an organization whose donors were from the higher echelons of society, I was embarrassed by it. Where was my joy? Where was my gratitude? And frankly, why did I care what they thought?

We pray for a house and then grumble that it doesn’t have a living room and a family room after visiting our aunt’s house. We pay for new floors and then wish we had paid for a vacation instead when we see our friend’s Instagram photos. We give our boyfriend the cold shoulder when Jill from accounting flashes her new engagement ring. We force a smile when our sister announces her second pregnancy and then go home to cry. Our best friend gets a promotion at work and we feel that we’ve fallen behind now. We scroll online and see a headline of a 26 year old retiring using the Fire Method or a list of 30 millionaires under 30 when our 40th birthday looms ever closer. We forget what we have when we start focusing on others. Their blessings become our lack.

Do not get me wrong, ambition and wanting more can be great things. After all, it’s drive and ambition that has put a man on the moon, given us electricity, discovered antibiotics, written symphonies and painted masterpieces. Without it we wouldn’t have our modern world. Competition can also be a good thing when you have someone to push against and with, you both can end up going further than if you were by yourself. However, when that comparison of value and worth starts to creep in, we lose. Part of the problem is that there is always someone above us on the ladder of life and we tend to look ahead of us rather than behind us.

When you move to a nicer neighborhood that you’ve dreamed of being able to be in, after a few months you start seeing the cracks in the sidewalk, the unkempt garden (sorry, neighbors I don’t use herbicides, it’s more a habitat for pollinators) and soon the next neighborhood looks much better. Each house is detached with a garage and clearly has plenty of space each surrounded by a nice neat fence. If you do manage to move then you start eyeing the one where everyone has a 3 to 5 door garage, the houses are more accurately described as mansions with private pools and there’s even a gate to keep out the riff raff. We are so prone to eye the next rung up to strive for what we do not have that we become burdened by ambition creating our own gilded cages of dissatisfaction and envy.

No matter how much we get, how far we go, how much we achieve, it will never be enough so long as we keep comparing ourselves to others because we can never win. The happiest people I know are the ones who live simply unburdened by things, pretenses and social status. They’re the ones who live in the woods or cultivate a small garden in the midst of their urban center. They snuggle cats and walk their dogs. They form genuine connections with others.

Not only does comparison rob us of our joy, but also it robs us of shared joy with others and the connections those shared joys can form. Rather than celebrating those we care most about and instead those moments are like small thorns twisting in our hearts poisoning our spirit. It also poisons our relationships causing a rift to form as you turn away. You begin to question your value and what you bring to the relationship. Perhaps, they sense your distance and wonder at your less than enthusiastic response to their news. They may attribute it to jealousy rather than feelings of inadequacy which can erode the foundations of your relationship.

It robs them of their joy as well. Have you ever gotten great news and when you shared it with someone you got a less than enthusiastic response? What about one that sucks the joy right out of you, leaving you with guilt or remorse? Yes, there are certain circumstances where two people cannot have the same thing, two friends may enter a contest knowing that if one wins the other will lose, but often that’s not the case. If my friend gets a promotion and I respond making it about me and my lack of one, I’ve just diminished her joy instead of amplifying it.

This isn’t to say that you can’t feel how you feel. After all, when you have worked really hard to get somewhere only to see someone else seemingly skate on by to the top, it can be incredibly frustrating and disheartening. You absolutely should let yourself feel those feelings in order to process them. I never recommend suppression and pretending. You can be joyful for another’s triumph while holding your own pain. That’s why I speak about joy rather than happiness. I don’t want to be happy, I want to be joyful.

However, bitterness against your circumstances, the world and even those you care about can set in. Usually, it’s not about the not having, it’s about what the not having means, that you’re less than everyone else. You’re not your job title, your social status, your income bracket, your marital status or any of the world’s measures for worth and value. Focusing on what brings you joy and bringing beauty, kindness, compassion, hope and love to the world are far more worthy pursuits than keeping up with the Joneses. Besides, why do we care what they think? If they look down on you for not having a brand new car or being able to go on a vacation in Belize every summer, that speaks to the low level of their character not yours.

When we stop worrying about what others think and embrace ourselves fully we find joy. When we stop comparing ourselves to everyone around us and “above” us, we find that we are enough just as we are. You are enough, dear reader.

In the Pursuit of Happiness Be Careful What You Leave Behind

Published on October 22, 2024August 29, 2024 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

I have written earlier about the choices we make and that there is always a cost to be paid. I encourage you dear reader, not to be disheartened with this advice. It is not an admonishment to not do things. It is only a word of caution to walk through a given door with your eyes open and prepared for what the task ahead will ask of you.

Consider the high performing lawyer. She goes to school, gets into a prestigious practice, starts working very hard, makes partner, earns a lot of money, and works very long hours. Suddenly, one day she wakes up and realizes she has lost touch with her family, she have no real friends because the only people she interacts with are her fellow lawyers who are only out to compete with her, she has a beautiful apartment she never sees and decides to quit taking a much lower paying job so that she can actually have a life outside the office, maybe get married, and have a child.

If she chooses to get married, have a child and keep her career working 70 to 80 hours a week, who will raise that child? Certainly not her directly, but whatever hired help she has. What kind of relationship will she have with that child? It would be difficult to cultivate a close personal relationship with a child she barely sees, especially when she is probably missing out on all the important things to a child like dance recitals and birthday parties. This is not to judge someone who chooses this life, it’s just not the choice I would want to make. The good Lord knows I don’t want to be away from my cats that much, I imagine I will want to spend even more time with my own children. However, to each their own.

Now it is not always something as grand as career vs family when we make these choices. They can be small. We cannot be a master of all trades given our limited time and resources. Choosing to pursue one hobby will probably mean giving up another. If I choose to weight lift, I may not have time to learn how to paint. If I choose to play the violin, I probably won’t have time to learn to sew. If I spent all my time out of the house going places, I would not be able to have my cats. I am not saying that these are the only dichotomies. Rather a single yes to one thing closes the door on almost hundreds of others, but a choice must always be made. Even choosing not to choose is still a choice – often the worst option you can take as it almost always leads to less than optimal conditions.

A yes to learning German was a no to the other 7,000+ possible other languages. A yes to pursue psychology and social work, was a no to thousands of other career paths. The point of course is to consider what doors your “yes” is closing and what ones it is opening. As a goal oriented person, it can be easy to get “lost” in the pursuit of the goal. To blindly plough forward heedless of the destruction in your wake until you stand upon the mountain top to gaze upon a ruined domain.

How often did I find myself alienating my project partners blindly completing the project and “getting us the A” in school? I was often confused when they reacted badly to my process. We got it done didn’t we? Are you unhappy with our success? The goal was to get a good grade, mission accomplished. I did not know that there were other pieces of the project not on the rubric that I was supposed to learn like how to cooperate with people and cultivate working relationships. In my pursuit of the goal, I burned the relationships with my peers in school. In the pursuit of other goals, we may neglect relationships or lose sight of things that really matter.

What might we still be missing in the pursuit of our goals? That is not to say that we should not pursue those goals only to be cautious in the pursuit. When your life narrows down to a single goal or passion, be aware that chances are you are about to give up a lot of things. If you want to become a doctor, you will probably give up a lot of free time and sleep. Traveling the world may mean giving up secure roots and long term relationships. Becoming a star athlete will mean missing out on a lot of fun parties to train and compete. When picturing your best life what are the things that you most wish to preserve? What things do you want to accomplish and what do they require of you to do? Are there things you absolutely won’t give up? Are they worth holding onto even it means giving up on a dream?

Often what we feel will make us happy, money and fame leave us empty and unfulfilled. In chasing those dreams, we often damage the relationships that truly enrich us. That isn’t to say don’t pursue your dreams. There are plenty of worthy goals and dreams to pursue. Depending on your own internal value system what one person finds most important may not be the same for you. However, it’s important to reflect on what you really value before diving headlong in pursuit of a goal that doesn’t really align with who you are. It’s also important to not get too hung up on a singular path to achieve a goal. I wanted to help people live better lives. I’ve become a therapist, but if this blog takes off, maybe I’ll do this full time instead. Maybe, I’ll become a professor and teach. Maybe I’ll start a non-profit. I’m open to where God leads me to serve and I’ve been willing to forgo obtaining higher paying jobs to do so. If you feel the reward is worth the cost, by all means pay it, just reflect on what the costs may be before you agree to pay it.

You are Responsible for Your Own Happiness

Published on September 10, 2024July 19, 2024 by BudgetBlissLeave a comment

I absolutely love this truth. For some, dear reader, this may seem a bit scary even mean. However, consider this from another angle, if you are not responsible for your own happiness who is? The answer of course is other people. Other people whom you cannot control and who may not have your own interests and needs in mind, let alone your happiness. And if they’re responsible for your happiness, does that make you responsible for theirs? Does that mean that you are expected to sacrifice yourself to their whims and desires in order to make them happy? How can you possibly be expected to know what will make them happy?

We humans are such fickle creatures and are almost never really satisfied. How can we all collectively be responsible for other people’s happiness and never our own? This constant cycle of pleasing people without thought to our own happiness can only leave us all miserable and unhappy. How freeing is it to say that “I am responsible for my happiness and you are responsible for yours”?

It is a reclamation of our own autonomy and choice. It frees us of the shackles of other people’s actions and reliance on them to do the “right thing” and allows us to fully stand in our own power. There are countless stories of human resilience, where people in terrible conditions were still able to choose not happiness but deep abiding joy. These are people who fully embraced their own power and would not allow their joy to be robbed by their oppressors or abusers. It was a way to take back what power they could to refuse to allow a prison to be one.

It is not easy to choose joy. It is not easy to be positive in the face of terrible circumstances and sometimes we do need to “sit in the suck”. I’m not an advocate of toxic positivity, because I don’t believe in suppressing negative emotions. I also don’t believe in feeding negative emotions. There is a time and place to process what’s going on, but not to swim in it, ‘till your fingers get all pruny. Acknowledge the “suck”, say it stinks, allow yourself to feel the unfairness, the injustice and general stink of whatever the situation is. Then cultivate your choices and possible responses.

This entire blog is devoted to a positive response of “the suck”. I did not have the time, energy and resources to live out a certain lifestyle. I could have easily gotten stuck in a negative mindset that I would never get to do the things I dreamed about doing. That I would continue to wish my life away and watch the years tick by until I was too old and sick to even enjoy the things even if I finally managed to save up the money to go do them. It would have been easy to shake my fist at a system that prevents so many people from making positive steps forward with stagnant wages, inflation and other social ills and give up. Instead, I looked around at what I could do instead. The answer was, I could do a lot. As it turns out, it allowed me to live out my values better than the original plan.

I did not have to rely on anyone to change the system. I simply went off and started making different choices. I choose to reevaluate my local community and see it in a new light. I choose to find happiness in the little things, seeing even small moments as things worthy of a bucket list. I will most likely write a post at a later date and time about cultivating daily gratitude, because that is what has helped to cultivate my happiness the most. I choose joy and I choose to be responsible for my own happiness. What a wonderful and freeing feeling that has been.