A large part of the suffering of modern people is self-inflicted. Imagine this scenario: You're lounging on the sofa, doing nothing, leisurely scrolling through Instagram. Suddenly, a post pops up: a high school classmate got promoted to a high-level executive position overseas, accompanied by a photo of him sitting with his legs crossed in business class. The next second, your heart skipped a beat. "Why not me?" "Am I doing terribly?" "Am I already far behind my peers?" But if you think about it calmly, nothing has actually changed. He got promoted, but your salary hasn't changed, your position hasn't changed, your boss hasn't changed, and your company hasn't changed. Your life trajectory hasn't changed at a physical level. The only change is that you now have a comparison point in your mind. And your brain immediately translates this information into a sentence: "I'm not good enough." Why is this happening? If jealousy brings pain, why has this emotion not been eliminated but retained in the long process of human evolution? In 1954, psychologist Festinger proposed the "social comparison theory": humans are born with the need to confirm their position and value by comparing themselves with others. In primitive tribes, comparison is a survival skill. Seeing your companions hunt more prey makes you realize, "I need to improve my skills, or I might go hungry." People who are indifferent to the situation of others will not be able to secure resources and will eventually be eliminated by the group. In other words, those who are so indifferent to their status in the tribe mostly failed to pass on their genes. Therefore, being competitive is not a character flaw, but rather proof of ancestral survival. Where is the problem? This system is designed for small tribes of thirty people. Your comparisons are limited to a few people in the next tent, and you can see their entire appearance. He hunted a deer, but his wife argued with him; she gathered a lot of fruit, but she twisted her ankle yesterday. Information is complete; comparison is multi-dimensional. But what about now? Social media can expand your "tribe" from thirty people to tens of millions. Tax payment screenshots on WeChat Moments, luxury item unboxing videos on Xiaohongshu, and crypto profits on Twitter—each one is a carefully curated snippet of life's essence. Your brain doesn't have time to discern the sampling bias and survivorship effect behind this information; it only receives one signal: "Everyone else is doing better than me." This is like cramming a chip designed to handle thirty data entries into a system that receives three million data entries per second. How could it not overload? Your anxiety is not because you are weak, but because you are using an ancient psychological system to cope with a world that was never designed to handle. So, what should we do? It's impossible to completely "let go of the desire to compare," because that would be fighting against hundreds of thousands of years of evolutionary instincts, which is simply impossible. You can make peace with yourself first. Tell yourself that it's normal for me to feel this way; evolution designed me to be this way. Feeling down when you see others doing well is normal brain function. The evolutionary system was originally designed to give you a push, encouraging you to work harder to acquire resources. The mechanism itself is good; it's just that it's been hijacked by social media, bombarding you with hundreds of carefully crafted "life's best moments" every day, which would overload anyone. All you need to know is why it gets overtriggered. This is similar to the logic of psychotherapy: many of the reaction patterns that bother you lose half their control over you once you understand where they come from. Then, it's about leveraging the positive side of this "comparison instinct"—opening your mind as much as possible to learn from and appreciate those you admire: What did they do right? Are there any methods I can learn from them? In this way, the comparison center transforms from "something that makes you uncomfortable" into "something that propels you forward," which is the original intention of evolutionary design. Next is actively reducing noise. Some accounts are really pointless: some MLM scammers and fraudsters are always showing off cash or Maseratis; or doctors' wives, engineers' wives, or wives of listed company bosses are always flaunting their husbands' salaries with pages full of product unboxing videos. This content will not be of any help to your life. Its sole function is to constantly trigger your comparative instincts, making you feel anxious, uneasy, and doubt yourself. If you've thought it through calmly and are certain that there's nothing you can learn from them—don't hesitate to untrace, hide, and block them. Your social media is yours. You have the right to decide what goes on your feed. The next time you're lying on the sofa scrolling through Instagram and see who got promoted, who made money, or who's living a better life than you, you'll still feel a bit sarcastic, which is perfectly normal. When that familiar feeling of anxiety reappears, you don't need to rush to get rid of it. You can just look at it and remind yourself: "This is an automatic reaction from an ancient module in my genes." Once you can change "I am feeling inferior and jealous" to "My comparison system is being triggered," you take a step back from your emotions. And that one step is enough. Because what truly sets people apart in life is not who lives better than you, but whether you can focus your attention on what is worthwhile in this world full of noise. Other people's lives are just background noise; your own path is the main theme. Just focus on playing the cards you're dealt.