Struggle With Being Positive? Try Asking Yourself This

There are a thousand reasons for you to be upset today.

Well, it depends.

It depends on who you know, who you see, how you define bad, and what you are used to. The situations we are in are not inherently good or bad in themselves, what makes them good or bad is how we feel about them.

A lot of the things we experience in life are judged based on our perception. What feels like a great experience for one person may feel like an awful experience for another. There is no universal or absolute definition of good or bad, there is only our interpretation of the events.

The sociologist Samuel Stouffer coined the term relative deprivation to describe how we measure our experiences against the people around us. This concept can explain why someone with a brand new car may not feel so happy after he realizes that his neighbor is driving the latest Mercedes.

It can explain why someone who has a net worth of a million dollars may feel small compared to her friend who has a net worth of five million dollars. What looks like a great situation to an outsider may feel like a miserable situation to an insider.

The fact of having a car and being able to drive anywhere is not what matters. What matters is whether we feel good in comparison to our neighbor or to someone from the same social circle. As human beings, we prioritize feelings over facts.

In addition to relative deprivation, we also like to compare ourselves to ourselves. This, of course, makes sense as we want to feel like we are “going somewhere”. As time passes by, we want to feel like we are becoming better — better humans, better friends, better lovers, etc. We want to feel an improvement in our daily habits and actions. This is fueled by our desire to achieve personal satisfaction and meaningful growth.

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