Keeping Up With the Joneses

referring to the comparison of oneself to one's neighbor.

Does having what others have really make us happy? Living in a world of “look at me.” Constantly comparing your lifestyle, possessions, financials, appearances, and feeling pressure to acquire what others have. If you don’t, you’re inferior and become stressed to match another.

The phrase Keeping up with Joneses originated in a comic strip from 1913, which was written by Arthur “Pop” Momand, describing the social pressure of matching a neighbor’s lifestyle. During the shift in American culture where frivolous consumption was replaced by the advertisement of materialism, began the consumer-driven social anxiety.

Today, this pressure goes deeper than just materialism.

Be thin. Don’t eat that. Make sure you do well in school. Go to college. Get a good career. Travel to as many places as you can, before you settle down. Get in shape & eat healthy. Find someone, get married, have a lavish wedding. Buy a house, “let’s have kids!” Lose the baby weight. Get the promotion. Make more money. Start a business “they did it and look at them now.” Let’s get a bigger house. Do we have enough to retire?

But do people really have what they say they have. Is this societal timeline fulfilling?

In my first year of graduate school, my professor told the class “everyone lies.” My professor wasn’t referring to not trusting one’s word but rather recognizing that people will minimize, exaggerate, and fabricate the truth. These are defense mechanisms that humans do to help them feel less inferior. We minimize stress. We exaggerate our lifestyle and financial successes. We attempt to deceive those around us with a false reality carefully curated. Not knowing if their possessions are rented or flashy lifestyle is fueled by credit debt. Or if their life choices have truly fulfilled them.

I think this is what makes it so impossible to keep up because we are trying to keep up with something that isn’t real. We are comparing and measuring our worth to a false reality. We are working to achieve milestones that may or may not be what we truly desire.

From a therapist, who was once effected by the curse of the Keeping up with the Joneses, letting go of this anxiety simply takes…

Learning to be present in your life. Being grateful for what you have. Enjoying the stage you are in within your own life. Slowing down. Breathing. Allowing yourself to live and not just have. Experiencing and engaging with the world in a way that aligns your values.

Life isn’t meant to be lived by societal expectations or measured by possessions. Life is lived with connection, experiences, and measured by moments.