I think it's always been normal for humans to compare themselves to each other, but we're so hyper-connected all the time now that it's driving us insane.
Interpretation
In today's connected world, constant comparisons between individuals can lead to negative mental health effects.
Mark Manson highlights the pervasive human tendency to compare oneself to others, noting that while this behavior has always existed, the hyper-connectivity of the modern age exacerbates its effects. The constant exposure to curated lives on social media leads to a heightened sense of inadequacy and distress, driving many individuals toward feelings of insanity as they struggle to measure up to unrealistic standards.
In practice
During a mental health seminar, this quote could illustrate the dangers of social media comparisons.
Whereas a lot of Buddhism concerns itself with stages of enlightenment, various precepts and moral codes, and even power structures and hierarchies, Zen is just like, 'Shut up, sit down, and observe your thoughts - oh, and by the way, what you perceive as you' doesn't actually exist.' I loved the minimalist approach of it.
I think people who become compulsive about fitness or eating right, a lot of the time it's out of fear that they're going to lose control or that they're not good enough, so I think anything done out of fear or motivated by fear is often unhealthy.
Many people come to self-help material because they feel like something is wrong with them or the way they are. The problem is that anything that tells you how to improve your life is also implying that there is something inherently wrong with you the way you are.
The first and perhaps most important thing to realize about being happier in life is to stop trying to be so happy in life.
Writing/reading is like visiting another person's brain. And a short book or article is like a short stay. You come in, have a coffee, talk about the weather or sports, and then move on.
I think humility - which I think is a very good value to adopt - is basically an extension of understanding your own ignorance.
In a typical mental health catch-22, the alienating nature of depression tends to keep its sufferers from finding their way to the very support groups that might help them.
I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish and anxiety, a sense that nothing goes well, that pleasure is unavailable and all your strategies collapse.
No one who had never been depressed like me could imagine that the pain could get so bad that death became a star to hitch up to, a fantasy of peace someday which seemed better than any life with all this noise in my head.
You can't fix yourself out of a mental health issue. You can't wake up and say, 'Today I'm not being depressed!' It's a process to get well, but there is recovery.
Several politicians and wives of politicians have been public about their experiences with depression or bipolar illness, including Lawton Chiles, Patrick Kennedy, Tipper Gore and Kitty Dukakis. Each made a tremendous difference by doing so.
I wasn't creative when I was depressed. When my depression got treated, I was creative again.
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