Is This You?
You’re having a perfectly fine evening until you unlock your phone. You start scrolling. There’s your friend on a breathtaking beach in Bali. A former colleague just announced a massive promotion at a cool startup. Someone from your old school now has a “perfect” family and a beautifully decorated home. Suddenly, your quiet evening feels… lacking. Your life, which felt perfectly good five minutes ago, now seems dull, ordinary, and behind schedule. You’ve fallen into the “comparison trap,” and it’s stealing your happiness one post at a time.
This feeling isn’t a modern invention. It’s one of the oldest and most corrosive poisons of the human heart. Ancient wisdom doesn’t just recognize it; it identifies it as the root cause of epic destruction.
The Ancient Anchor
In Sanskrit, this corrosive feeling is called Matsarya. It is a toxic blend of envy and jealousy. It also includes the inability to be happy for others’ success. It’s considered a powerful internal enemy. A classic verse from the Subhashitas warns about its nature:
परस्य भूषणं वीक्ष्य, परस्य च वरस्त्रियम् |परस्य सफलां ऋद्धिं, दृष्ट्वा दह्यति यो नरः |स एव पुरुषो लोके विज्ञेयः क्षय-रोगवान् ||
(Parasya bhūṣaṇaṁ vīkṣya, parasya ca varastriyam |Parasya saphalāṁ ṛd’dhiṁ, dr̥ṣṭvā dahyati yo naraḥ |Sa eva puruṣo loke vijñeyaḥ kṣaya-rogavān ||)
Translation: He who, upon seeing another’s beautiful ornaments, another’s fine wife, and another’s flourishing prosperity, burns with envy. Know such a man in this world to be afflicted with an incurable disease.
The message is stark: Envy is not a fleeting feeling. It is a sickness of the soul. This sickness consumes you from within.
How This Philosophy Unfolds in the Ancient Texts
Our epics are not just stories; they are case studies in the destructive power of Matsarya.
The entire Mahabharata war, a conflict that wiped out millions, was ignited by a single, searing moment of envy. Duryodhana was visiting the Pandavas’ new palace at Indraprastha. It was a hall of illusions and wonders. It was so magnificent that he was publicly humiliated. He mistook a polished floor for a pool of water. He saw the wealth, the power, and the happiness of his cousins, and he began to “burn with envy.” His father, the king, advised him, “Be happy for them. Why do you suffer?” But Duryodhana couldn’t. That envy grew into a poisonous obsession. It led him to cheat the Pandavas out of their kingdom. He humiliated their wife. Ultimately, he dragged an entire civilization into a catastrophic war. He would rather see everything destroyed than see his cousins succeed.
This theme isn’t limited to mortals. Even the gods fell victim to envy. When powerful sages like Vishwamitra performed intense spiritual practices (tapasya), their power grew immensely. It threatened the supremacy of the gods in heaven. Indra, the king of the gods, would burn with jealousy. Instead of admiring the sage’s discipline, he would send celestial distractions—beautiful Apsaras like Menaka—to break the sage’s concentration. The gods’ envy reveals a profound truth. Even those who have everything can be made miserable by the success of others.
Finally, consider the story of Karna. He was a warrior of immense talent and generosity. However, he deeply envied Arjuna’s fame and status. He was constantly comparing himself to Arjuna, seeking to prove he was better. This rivalry, fueled by matsarya, blinded him. It pushed him to join the unrighteous Duryodhana. This association made him participate in terrible acts. One such act was the humiliation of Draupadi. His envy prevented him from seeing the bigger picture of dharma and ultimately contributed to his tragic downfall.
The Modern Disconnect
If envy was a disease in ancient times, our modern world is a pandemic. Social media algorithms are engineered to be comparison machines. They don’t just show you your friends’ lives. They also show you a globally curated, filtered, and monetized version of “the good life.” We are constantly bombarded with images of perfect bodies, flawless relationships, and effortless success. We logically know it’s not real, but our brains are wired to compare. We are living in Duryodhana’s palace of illusions 24/7.
Wisdom at Work
How do we heal ourselves from this modern sickness?
- In Your Career/Hustle: A colleague gets the promotion you wanted. The enemy, envy, whispers, “It’s not fair. They don’t deserve it.” The cure is to practice Mudita—finding sympathetic joy in the happiness of others. Actively congratulate them. Verbally praise their skills. This act feels counter-intuitive, but it’s a powerful antidote. It rewires your brain from a scarcity mindset. You move away from thinking “their win is my loss.” Instead, you embrace “a win for the team is a win for me.”
- In Your Relationships: You see a friend’s “perfect relationship” on display. Instead of letting envy create distance, use it as a trigger for gratitude. Immediately, think of three specific things you genuinely appreciate about your own partner or your own life. Comparison thrives in a vacuum; gratitude fills that vacuum with positivity.
- For Your Mental Health: Curate your digital environment like a garden. Unfollow any account that consistently makes you feel bad about yourself. It’s not rude; it’s an act of self-preservation. Fill your feed with accounts that inspire you, teach you, or make you laugh. You are the gatekeeper of your own mind; don’t let the poison in.
Modern Sages
The wisest voices, past and present, have all identified this truth.
- Swami Vivekananda saw envy as a sign of weakness and spiritual poverty. He taught, “The great secret of true success and true happiness is this: the man or woman who asks for no return is the most successful. The perfectly unselfish person achieves the most success.” Unselfishness is the cure for envy.
- The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard called comparison “the end of happiness and the beginning of discontent.”
- Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th U.S. President, famously stated, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” This simple, powerful line perfectly encapsulates the ancient wisdom.
- Researcher and author Brené Brown has found something important. There is a difference between healthy striving and toxic perfectionism. It is the element of comparison. She says, “I’m not talking about striving for excellence. I’m talking about the feeling that ‘I’m not good enough.'” That feeling is almost always fueled by looking at others.
Your First Step
Try a “Comparison Fast” for 24 hours. This means no scrolling through social media feeds (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn). You can use messaging apps to communicate, but no passive browsing of other people’s lives. Pay attention to how you feel. Notice the mental space that opens up. Notice how your focus shifts from the external world back to your own life, your own thoughts, your own reality. This small act can reveal just how much of your mental energy the comparison trap has been stealing from you. It’s the first step to getting it back.
