Do you let everybody know when you feel like your life is falling apart? Or do you put your best foot forward, smile, and pretend everything is fine?
Most people don’t air their dirty laundry for all the world to see. Especially in situations where it would be unprofessional to do so.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. The whole world does not need to know every sordid detail of our personal lives. But this means that most of the time, we’re getting a misleading impression of how other people are really doing. Which can be a huge source of dissatisfaction and anxiety when you compare your real life to the whitewashed impression you got of somebody else’s life.
“Their lives are perfect!”
My husband and I had been married for just a couple of years when we decided to attend a one-day marriage seminar. I was hoping that I would see a certain friend and her husband there. But when they didn’t show up, I thought, “Well, why would they attend a marriage seminar? They don’t need it! They already have the perfect marriage!”
Silly me. Within 2 years, that couple was divorced. Then I found out what my friend had really been going through. Her real marriage – not the one I perceived – made mine look like a fairy tale. Her marriage hadn’t been half as happy as mine! And here I thought that just because everything looked wonderful on the outside, that she had the perfect marriage.
That scenario has played out many times in my life. I look around and see everybody else putting their best foot forward, not hanging their dirty laundry out for everybody to see, so I assume there is no dirty laundry.
Many times, if I knew the problems that other people were really facing, I wouldn’t think their lives were so much better than mine. My jealousy would go right out the window.
Insecurity leads to anxiety
Being jealous of imaginary perfect lives is also a huge source of anxiety. Constantly thinking that your life doesn’t measure up to somebody else’s, that your family isn’t as good as somebody else’s, that other people would surely look down on you if you ever let them see the real you, leads straight to stress, anxiety, and depression.
The sad thing is that it’s not real. It’s all in your head. And there’s a good chance that when other people look at you and see you putting your best foot forward and not hanging your dirty laundry out for all the world to see, they’re also feeling jealous of your imaginary perfect life.
Maybe you think your problems and flaws are too obvious, so nobody would think that. The truth is that you have no idea how your noticeable problems compare with someone else’s real problems. We’re all comparing what we know about ourselves with what we perceive about other people. If we knew what they know and saw what they see, our insecurity might go right out the window.
The best-selling 1996 book The Millionaire Next Door, the authors researched the characteristics of millionaires. They discovered that very often, millionaires who look like millionaires are not nearly as rich as they look. They are often up to their eyeballs in debt, receiving financial help from their parents, and suffering from a great deal of stress and anxiety. By contrast, people who are truly rich often don’t look like it. They live below their means and feel much happier and less stressed because of it. The real situation is often the opposite of what it appears to be.
My sister-in-law used to bring her six children to my house every week for piano lessons. Reality is, we’re a very introverted family. But when you put my five children together with her six, and only one of them is taking piano lessons at a time while the other 10 are outside playing and making lots of noise, what kind of impression do you think the neighbors got? Did they think we were a very quiet, introverted family? Not if they saw us on piano lesson nights! But of course, unless they asked, they had no way of knowing that we were all related and the kids were there for piano lessons. They might have been jealous of our popularity or our parties or whatever they imagined was happening.
If you’re feeling anxious because you imagine that your life doesn’t measure up to somebody else’s… stop it! Ask yourself, what do you really know about that person? What impression do they get when they see you? Do you even know enough to be jealous?
