#187: Drowning in envy

Montesquieu wrote 275 years ago, “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.”

We all have fixed points that we aim towards in our lives. Homeownership is one of the most popular, but others include paying for children’s college expenses, becoming an executive or partner, founding a company, or reaching a certain net worth. The problem with these default fixed points is that they are culturally derived rather than a product o

What I found was a hidden source of anguish that wasn’t just widespread but nearly universal among people who have done well in their careers. I came to call this the “striver’s curse”: people who strive to be excellent at what they do often wind up finding their inevitable decline terrifying, their successes increasingly unsatisfying, and their re