"Do not compare yourself to others, for you will be bitter and vain. There will always be people above and below you."

Envy. Everyone struggles with it. People who "don't" struggle to not struggle with it. Or they choose to live in exile from this ever changing, ever demanding materialistic world. Like the monks... way before they started riding Mercedes and went out shopping at Gucci.

I get jealous a lot. I don't show it, because I play it cool. I keep it under control. But the desire to be as smart as the top student in my class, to look as good as that pretty girl, to have whatever they have, it gets to me.

I don't know how but somehow, society has managed to brainwash most of us to be the better person. Get better grades. Have a better life. Choose the better deal. Have a better fashion sense.
Do your best, as long as it is better than the average. If you fall short of the above average line, you didn't try hard enough/ you're just not good enough.
Since when did being average became another term for failure?

Kinda sucks how this system works. Driving all of us to attain more and more, because face it, we compare and we want to be better than average.

So many times I've wanted more for myself. So much so that it has become a kind of bad habit. Or an addiction to be precise.
Yes I am a shopaholic. Can't help wanting more clothes to make myself look better and keep appearances.

But it has to stop. I don't want to go splurging on "affordable" clothes that aren't so affordable if bought in bulk, and feel guilty afterwards because I've wiped my savings clean.

I got to the root of the problem. Envy. That's where all the shopping came from. Nothing but pure jealousy. Then I figured what spurred me on and I'm proud to say I've not bought a single magazine for the whole of this year.
Magazines are so powerful. They make you think you're admiring a certain celeb's style but in reality they're inviting you to want whatever she/he has.

Envy is a pretty powerful thing too. It's like a little seed planted in your heart. Whenever you compare your life with someone else, it grows. Before you know it, a vine's grown all tangled around your heart, and it will suck the life out of you.

Think about it, what kind of life do you have if you keep comparing it to others? Just a question for you readers to ponder upon (if any at all).