No hankering

In general I've never hankered after someone else's life or imagined they're having a better life than me. I've never thought the grass is greener on the other side.

Another person's life may look desirable from the outside, but if you knew anything about their private life no doubt you'd discover all sorts of problems and disappointments and disasters they're carefully hiding from the rest of us behind smiling faces.

They don't have some charmed and magical existence but face the same setbacks and tragedies as everyone else.

I don't understand those people (especially youngsters) who think their lives will be wonderful if they could just become a super-model or a movie star or a famous footballer. Or any kind of celebrity. Be careful what you wish for.

If you have personal experience of any of those supposedly glittering lifestyles, you'd know the reality is very different from the glamorous image. Models for example will soon tell you they don't just swan around the world looking gorgeous, they have to work in freezing cold and scorching heat and maintain an ultra-thin figure. Hardly a magical existence.

Jealousy deficit

Jealousy is something I don't understand. I've never resented other people's achievements or skills or possessions or advantages in life. I've never been suspicious of what my spouse might be doing behind my back. I'm quite happy with my own life and don't need to behave like a neurotic child.

Some people get so irrationally jealous they resort to absurd acts of destruction and violence. A man shreds all his girlfriend's clothes or vandalises her car. Or he goes to her supposed lover's house and throws paint over all the windows.

My father was the jealous type. He was always suspicious of my mother's friends and wanted to know exactly what she was doing if she was out somewhere. He even imagined she was having lesbian affairs with her female friends. She never showed the slightest hint of lesbianism but that didn't put him off.

I don't take after him at all. I know lots of people who're more intelligent, more talented, better educated, wealthier, with beautiful houses, with fewer hang-ups, but I'm not jealous of them or even mildly envious. I just think, well, good for them, they're luckier than me in all sorts of ways, they seem to have great lives, but I don't need to resent them because my own life has worked out very well and why spend my time hankering after what someone else has got?

What bothers me isn't other people's achievements but their need to make sure everyone knows about them. They have to casually mention that little Benjamin attends the best school in the neighbourhood. Or that they got their house for £20,000 less than the asking price. Or that they flew business class to somewhere or other. Such relentless boasting gets rather tedious.

"The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves." - William Penn