The comparison game: why even joy feels competitive online
There’s a quote from the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer that has stuck with me: “If you only want to be happy, that is very easy to achieve. But people want to be happier than other people. And that is much more difficult.”
Morgan Housel, a writer I admire, brought this up in an interview recently and it’s been circling in my mind ever since. His take was this: much of our striving isn’t really about happiness in a pure, internal sense – it’s about comparison. It’s not that we want a nice house. It’s that we want a house nicer than yours. And once you see it that way, it’s hard to unsee it.
He argues that we often confuse the fleeting feeling of happiness with the deeper, more grounded state of being content. Happiness, after all, is momentary. It fades. But contentment – that quiet, inner peace – is something we can actually build toward.
So when someone asks, “What does it mean to be content?” – the answer, as Housel puts it, is moving away from these external benchmarks. It’s shifting our attention from how we measure up to others, and instead asking ourselves what actually brings us joy. For most of us, that list is surprisingly short. Our health. Our family. The people we love. That’s it.
And yet...
If that’s true – and I deeply believe it is – why do we still feel compelled to share that family reunion photo on Facebook?
I found myself scrolling through my feed the other day and saw a colleague’s cheerful post: kids smiling, sunset in the background, glasses raised in a toast. And I asked myself, not critically but curiously: What’s the value here? Is this just another entry in the comparison game? Because let’s be honest – the viewers, the followers, the onlookers... they don’t feel our joy. At best, they witness it. But more often than not, it stirs up something else. A small pang. A whisper of comparison.
And I’m not exempt. I’ve posted those photos too – the hiking trip, the birthday cake, the workout progress. But lately, I wonder if even the most innocent update can become part of a loop we never meant to join. A subtle, self-reinforcing cycle: Look how good my life is. Is yours as good? And just like that, we’re all participating in something we didn’t fully sign up for.
From this angle, it becomes painfully clear: there’s only one way out. We have to pause before posting. Maybe even stop entirely. Not because joy is bad, or family photos are wrong, but because somewhere along the way we began performing life instead of living it. Social media – once a digital scrapbook – has turned into a scoreboard.
And no one wins.
I’m not saying delete your Facebook account (though if you do, I won’t stop you). But I am saying this: maybe it’s time to ask ourselves why we’re sharing what we’re sharing. Is it connection? Or competition in disguise?
Because the only benchmark that really matters – the only one that can bring peace – is the one inside.