Recently, a friend posted on Facebook that he sold his startup for a gazillion dollars. Someone I went to school with, who was the same age as me.

It was great news. I was happy for him…for a few moments.

In a matter of few seconds, my mind wandered away from genuine joy for my friend to envy. It happened so quickly that I did not even notice it.

Our minds are programmed to desire what others have, to focus on what’s missing in our lives, especially when it comes to money.

“The closer two people are — in age, in background, in the process of identification — the more there’s a danger of envy.” ~Alain de Botton

Money has become the de facto indicator of status. And we love status.

We have evolved to crave social status. There was a time when high social status increased your chance of survival. For our ancestors, being the leader of the tribe meant higher chances of survival and procreation.

However, this is no longer the case in modern society. We do not need social status to to survive. But millions of years of evolution cannot be overridden by a few thousand years of modernity. We still have that part in us that screams, “I want what he has”, when we see someone climbing the social hierarchy.

If we let our primitive brain drive our desires and motivations, we are doomed to an unfulfilling life. Because there will always be someone higher up the ladder, no matter how high you climb. There will always be someone with a bigger paycheck, better car and fancier house.

No matter how high you climb the comparison mindset will look up and say, “You are worthless!”, until you have what that guy above you has.

The proliferation of social media has exacerbated the comparison culture. With the tap of a finger you can have the lizard brain salivating on social comparison.

Nancy just bought a new car.

Like

Sam just bought a new house.

Love.

On the flip side, social media has also trained us to live in a constant state of self promotion. To let other people know of our status.

Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram have invested billions of dollars to take advantage of our innate desire for social status. They have mastered the tactics for titillating our cravings. They give us positive reinforcement using likes, comments and notifications. We get excited when that little red notification icon lights ups. And we follow along like pavlov’s dog.

We all like to be admired, to be respected, to be successful. But we forget that most of our ideas of what it would mean to live successfully are not our own. They’re sucked in from other people, from Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram. We are persuaded by movies, TV shows and advertisements. These are hugely powerful forces that define what we want and how we view ourselves.

Without a rigorous focus on our personal metrics of success, we will be tempted to follow our desires wherever they take us. We will always be trapped in the treadmill of more.

More money, More fame, more power

More likes, more shares, more recommends.

It won’t end.

Do you know what drives of your desires and motivation?

I didn’t.

One day I asked myself, Do the motivations and desires of these “successful” people align with mine? If not, why am I running this race if I have no desire to reach their finish line?

Oftentimes we automatically assume that their goal are the same as ours. The tragedy is that we end up measuring ourselves with the metrics that invariably lead us away from our goals opening up a humiliating gap between our actual self and our desired self.

“The worst thing in life is to climb the ladder, get to the top and then realize it was against the wrong wall.” ~Jack Canfield

We are surrounded by powerful forces that drive us consciously and unconsciously. If we don’t have an internal compass to direct our desires and motivations, we will end up with a lot of wasted time and a lot of regret. It is crucial that we know why we do what we do. It is crucial that we answer these questions:

Who are you and who do you want to become? Why?

What does success mean to you?

What do you want to be remembered for?”

“I’ll say it clearly: You have to know why you do what you do and what truly motivates you to do it. Or I promise, it will cost you so much pain. So much wasted time. Because the alternative is unknowingly assuming terms that you don’t really believe in. Oh yeah, there are a lot of ways to make money. But I chose my way instead of their way for a reason, namely because I tried it already and hated it. I don’t want what those people have and I don’t want to live and act like they do. So why the hell am I using them as a metric for success? For you, maybe you do work on Wall Street for money. That’s perfectly fine. Maybe the most important thing to you is family. Awesome, so that’s your priority. But what it means is that not only do you have to start measuring yourself by family-related metrics, you also have to stop measuring yourself against all those other people with different priorities. So why do you do what you do? That’s the question you need to answer. Stare at it until you can. Only then can you understand what matters and what doesn’t. Only then can you say no — can you opt out of stupid races that don’t matter, or exist. Only then is it easy to ignore “successful” people, because most of the time they aren’t–at least relative to you, and often even to themselves. Only then you can develop the quiet confidence that Seneca called euthymia — “the belief that you’re on the right path and not led astray by the many tracks which cross yours of people who are hopelessly lost.” ~ Ryan Holiday

While we may know this intellectually, in practice it is difficult to avoid getting sucked into the vortex of comparison. Into someone else’s race using someone else’s metrics.

Whenever my primitive brain takes control of my mind, I pause for a second to distance myself from its outdated automatic responses.

When the ancient part of the brain, the lizard brain, yells, “I want what he has”.

I tell the lizard, “That is not your race. Run your own race.”