|
Green-Eyed Monster May 14, 2006 By Shira Boss Noticing that the neighbors are better off than you are? Wondering how they're managing? When you see the prices homes are selling for, do you ask yourself, “Where the heck is the money coming from?” Not so fast. I've been down that road — far — and I can report back that things are not as they seem. For my husband and me, it started when the apartment next door was sold to a young couple our age — who we heard paid cash. We tried to ignore it, but we couldn't stop our guessing game about their money. The woman dressed stylishly. They renovated. They went "antiquing." On top of it all, she quit her job. Comparing our situation to theirs — my husband had been job-searching and we were barely scraping by - was driving us nuts. We were envious. While millions of Americans suffer from the same feelings, I quickly learned that envy is the only vice warned against in both the Ten Commandments and the Seven Deadly Sins. It's ugly, but it's practically impossible to avoid. Even animals size each other up. Noticing and wanting what other people have is a staple of the American Dream, and our treadmill of desire keeps our economy humming and our standard of living high. There will always be the Joneses to keep up with. The problem is that — especially given our rather sudden collective reliance on credit cards and home-equity borrowing to support our lifestyles - appearances are less reliable than ever. The Joneses as we see them very likely do not exist. Eventually, I went over to our next-door neighbors and asked questions. "Money is, by far, my No. 1 stress," the woman said. Huh? They had a mortgage after all (it had only been a cash closing) and a home-equity line of credit. Her clothing had been charged on a credit card she kept secret from her husband - and it had a happiness-sapping balance of $21,000. Well, well, well! Imagine what you would discover about the financial situation of the Joneses in your life — if you could only ask (and if they would tell). I spent two years doing this: getting behind closed doors and digging out the real deal. What a fiction we are living! The suburban family hanging out at the country club and jetting to ski weekends? Their home equity was tapped out and they were harboring credit card debt of $100,000 — which drove them into a highly secretive bankruptcy. Think you don't know anyone like them? Statistically, if you know two couples who've gotten divorced in the past year, you know three families who've gone bankrupt. Not that you can tell which ones. Needed at our table of comparison: large salt lick. Go ahead and admire what others have, even plot to get it yourself. But don't get dragged into the doldrums wondering why you can't quite keep up. What you envy might not even exist. Even when it does, it doesn't mean the others are any more content with their lot. SHIRA BOSS is the author of "Green with Envy: Why Keeping Up with the Joneses Is Keeping Us in Debt." (Warner Business, May 2006). Her podcasts are on iTunes and www.greenwithenvythebook.com. |