Baruch Spinoza was a 17th-century Dutch philosopher who believed that human misery comes

from misunderstanding how the universe works. He believed that the entire universe runs on an

unbreakable chain of cause and effect. Everything that happens, including those who gets rich, who

gets famous, and who struggles, happens exactly the way it has to. Because of this, he thought

getting jealous of someone else was just bad math. When you compare yourself to a wealthy friend,

you are usually thinking something like, "That could have been me."

Spinoza said that this is a complete misunderstanding of reality. Thinking "that

could have been me" is like looking at a triangle and getting upset that it doesn't have four sides.

Your current life is strict, calculated result of your unique genetics, your environment,

and your past experiences. Wishing your life looked exactly like someone else's

means you are demanding that the universe break its own fundamental laws just for you.

He explored all of this in his book called Ethics. He wrote the book like a geometry textbook in

which he used axioms, definitions, and strict mathematical proofs to explain human emotions.

So in this video, we are going to use his philosophy to talk about how to stop comparing

yourself to people who have more. 1. There Are No Alternate What Ifs

When you see someone who has more than you, a bigger house, a higher salary, or a better career,

you naturally think, "Well They made the right choices. They worked harder. And they earned it."

And by default, that means you must have made the wrong choices.

Spinoza argued that this entire way of thinking is flawed because human free will is also a complete

illusion. We assume that when we make a choice, we do it completely independent of our genetics,

our past, and our environment. Spinoza however completely disagreed. To him, the universe isn't

a playground of independent choices. It is a massive, unbreakable chain of cause and effect.

Spinoza famously compared human beings to a rolling stone.

Imagine a stone is kicked down a hill. Halfway down, it suddenly wakes up and

gains consciousness. It realizes that it is moving, but it has no memory of the kick.

Because it can feel itself rolling, the stone proudly concludes, "I am choosing to move."

Spinoza said that we are like that stone. We think we are making independent decisions,

but we are only reacting to our genetics, our childhoods, the economy, and the exact

chemical state of our brains on any given day. Think about a former classmate who just achieved

massive financial success, while you feel stuck in the exact same place you were five years ago.

Your immediate thought is probably, "We started at the exact same starting line,

in the same classroom, so I should be where they are." But Spinoza would point out that

you are looking at two different chains of cause and effect that separate you both.

First, there is your chain: your specific genetics, your childhood experiences, your

unique brain chemistry, and the exact sequence of events that led up to where you are today.

Then, there is their chain: their specific genetics, their unique risk tolerance,

the subtle encouragement they got from a parent they were seven, or the random mentor they met on

a Tuesday afternoon. You were two different stones kicked down two different hills.

Expecting your life to look exactly like theirs is like planting an apple seed and getting

upset that it didn't grow into an oak tree. If you walk into a forest and see a towering

oak tree standing next to a tiny, struggling sapling, you don't look at the sapling and call

it a failure. You recognize that the larger tree had better soil, more sunlight, and deeper roots.

You accept both trees exactly as they are because you understand cause and effect.

Spinoza is just asking you to look at human beings with that exact same logic.

That person who has more than you didn't just magic their success into existence out of nowhere.

And more importantly, your current situation isn't a deep personal failure.

Now, does this mean you haven't made any bad choices? Well of course not,

everyone has made bad choices. You might have taken the wrong job, or trusted the wrong person,

studied the wrong subject, or wasted years of your life doing absolutely nothing.

But Spinoza's point is that, given exactly who you were at that specific moment in time,

given your level of maturity, the information you had available, and the exact state of your brain

on that day, you could not have made any other choice. If you rewound the clock a thousand times

under those exact same conditions, you would make that exact same mistake a thousand times.

You are exactly where your specific chain of causes brought you. Once you accept that,

you can let go of the guilt, drop the comparisons, and focus entirely on what to do next.

2. Ignore the Scoreboard We spend a massive amount of

our lives suffering because we keep measuring our jobs, our bank accounts, and our lives in general

against a giant, invisible scoreboard that society has placed in front of us.

But Spinoza points out that scoreboard does not exist.

He argued that concepts like "Good" and "Evil," or "Perfect" and "Imperfect,"

are not real properties of the physical universe. You cannot put "perfection" under a microscope.

You cannot weigh "success" on a scale. Spinoza said these concepts are merely fictions that

we create in our own minds the moment we start comparing two things to one another.

Nature has no measuring stick. A mountain is not necessarily "better" than a valley.

A tiger is not particularly "more successful" than a deer. They just are. The universe simply exists,

without judging or ranking any of its parts. Yet, we humans forget this. When we see

someone living in a sprawling, multi-million dollar mansion while we are living in a small

1 bedroom apartment, we automatically assume the mansion is objectively "better," and that

the person living in it is "winning" at life. But the universe does not view the mansion as

better. The universe just sees bricks, glass, and wood arranged in a specific pattern,

taking up a little bit more space than the concrete and steel of your apartment.

The only reason that mansion seems "better" to you, the only reason it makes you feel like a

failure, is because you accepted a rule that people just made up out of thin air.

Once you stop treating society's opinions like they are actual laws of physics,

you realize there is no universal standard you are failing to meet. So to stop comparing

yourself to others, you simply have to stop trying to win a game that doesn't exist.

3. Understanding the "One Substance" Most of us look at the world and see billions of

separate, disconnected things. You see yourself as an isolated individual, totally separate

from your neighbor, your coworkers, and me. Spinoza said this is a total illusion. He was

what philosophers call a "monist." meaning someone who believes that everything in the universe,

including mind and matter, is just a different expression of the exact same unified whole which

he called the Substance. He argued that everything in existence, every person, every animal,

every planet, is not a separate object, but just a temporary expression of that one single substance.

And these temporary expressions, he called Modes. Think of the ocean as Spinoza's one substance.

As the water moves, it creates millions of individual waves.

For a few seconds, a wave looks like a completely separate, independent thing. But it isn't.

It is just a temporary shape that the ocean is taking. In this metaphor, the waves are the modes.

Similarly, you and the person you are comparing yourself to are just two waves on the exact same

ocean. You are both just temporary expressions of the exact same underlying fabric of nature.

Imagine you are an instrumentalist playing in a large orchestra. You play the flute, and someone

else plays the violin. If you are stuck in the illusion of being separate, you might sit there

feeling insecure because the violinist gets more solos or more applause than you do. You view them

as a competitor taking attention away from you. But if you step back and look at the reality, you

realize you are both just different expressions of the exact same piece of music. The flute and the

violin are not fighting each other; they are just different modes of the exact same song.

And this precise idea applies to wealth as well. When an old friend suddenly makes

millions on a real estate deal while we're just grinding away to pay our mortgage,

we usually get jealous because we see ourselves as completely separate from them. We picture

the world as a giant room full of disconnected people fighting over some limited pile of cash.

But look at it through Spinoza's lens, you and your friend are both just different expressions of

the same universe. And those millions of dollars? They are just a temporary pile of resources the

universe gathered in one spot for a little while. Think about your own body. Right now, there is

way more blood pumping through your heart than through your pinky finger. But you don't think

your pinky finger is losing the battle. You know it's part of the same connected body.

And it works the exact same way with wealth. The universe just moves its resources around

at different times. Your friend's massive bank account doesn't mean you are falling behind.

It just means the universe is expressing itself differently in that spot right now.

4. Find Your Conatus At the very center of Spinoza’s

philosophy is a concept he called Conatus. He defined this as the deep, built-in drive that

every single living thing has to preserve its own existence and expand its power.

A tree’s conatus is that stubborn push to drive its roots deep into the ground for water.

A tiger’s conatus is its raw instinct to hunt and stay alive.

For plants and animals, this drive is just about physical survival.

But for humans, it goes deeper than just staying alive. Your mind and body

are built from a one-of-a-kind combination of biology, genetics, and past experiences.

Because your exact makeup has never existed before in the history of the world, the things that give

you energy and expand your power will look very different from the person standing next to you.

Take a loud, crowded room for an example. An extrovert’s conatus feeds on that social

interaction. The longer they stay, the more energized and powerful they feel.

But for an introvert, that exact same room exhausts them. They expand their power and

feel most alive when reading, creating, or having a quiet, one-to-one conversation. The room itself

isn't objectively good or bad, it just interacts completely differently with their unique natures.

A fish explores the world by swimming; a bird does it by flying. A fish doesn't waste time

feeling bad that it can't build a nest in a tree. It just focuses on being a highly effective fish.

But when you get caught up envying someone else, you aren't just staring at their bank account or

their status, you are trying to abandon your own nature in order to copy theirs.

Let’s say you have a friend who thrives in the hyper-competitive world of corporate finance.

Their nature is fueled entirely by high stress, cutthroat negotiations, and eighty-hour weeks.

But you, well you are a creative person. You need deep focus, time to build things

from scratch, and a flexible schedule. If you sit around agonizing over the fact

that your finance friend makes three times your salary, you are assuming that what feeds their

nature will also nourish yours. You are trying to force someone else’s way of being onto your own,

and it will always make you miserable. To stop comparing yourself to others,

you have to get brutally honest about what makes you thrive. Once you figure that out, pour all

your energy into growing it, rather than trying to be a second-rate version of somebody else.

5. Focus on active emotions Spinoza split our emotions into two groups:

passive and active. Passive emotions, which he called "passions", are triggered by external

forces that you don't fully understand. For example, if someone cuts you off in traffic

and you instantly get furious and let a complete stranger ruin your morning, that is a passive

emotion. When you have a passive emotion, you are just reacting blindly to the outside world.

Active emotions on the other hand come from you. They happen when you use your own logic and reason

to understand the world clearly, and you act based on that understanding. For example, if that same

car cuts you off, but you use reason to realize the driver might be rushing to an emergency

and that yelling won't change the past, you simply let it go and keep your peace of mind.

When you have an active emotion, you are in the driver's seat.

Spinoza pointed out that jealousy and comparison are the passive emotions.

When you fixate on someone else's money, their job, or their lifestyle,

you stop acting on your own terms and start living as a reaction to someone else's success.

Imagine your friend who has the "perfect" marriage or relationship.

If you are stuck in a passive emotional state, you scroll through their photos, feel bad about your

own relationship status, and complain to other people that their relationship is probably fake

anyway. In this scenario, another person's romance is controlling your nervous system.

You are acting on what Spinoza called "inadequate ideas", meaning that you are confused and just

reacting to the surface level of things. However, if you switch to an active emotion,

you look at the same relationship, but you use reason instead of just reacting.

You realize your peer's marriage is just the result of a long chain of past events, genetics,

and timing. You realize that getting angry at someone else's partnership makes no logical sense.

But how do you stop being passive and take control?

Spinoza gave us a very practical formula for this. He wrote: "An emotion, which is a passion,

ceases to be a passion, as soon as we form a clear and distinct idea of it."

In simple words: the fastest way to kill envy is to put it under a microscope.

When you catch yourself comparing your life to someone else's, stop and break it down with pure

logic. Ask yourself exactly why this thing is bothering you? Usually, you will realize you are

actually upset because you tied your self-worth to something you cannot control, like how much

money someone else makes, their relationship, or how many people like them. Once you see that

your envy is based on a totally irrational foundation, the emotion naturally dissolves.

6. Redefining True Wealth Before Spinoza wrote his major

philosophical works, he was on track to take over a successful family business, but he looked around

at what everyone else was chasing, that’s wealth, fame, and pleasure, and realized it was a trap.

He saw that all of these material things have one fatal flaw: they are completely

unstable and entirely outside of your control. If you tie your happiness to money or status,

you are handing over your peace of mind over to external forces. The economy can crash,

public opinion can flip, and you can lose everything you worked for in a single afternoon.

Spinoza argued that if you want true peace, you have to anchor yourself to something permanent.

You have to chase what he called the "highest good." He famously called this the "intellectual

love of God." But Spinozas version of God wasn't some old man with a great big bushy

beard up in the clouds, no. For him, god is simply nature - That is to say the entire

universe and all the physical laws that govern it. So when he talks about the highest good being

the intellectual love of God, he means reaching a deep, rational understanding of how reality works.

And this completely destroys the entire foundation of comparison.

Think about how material wealth actually works. If someone buys a specific piece of real estate,

you can’t buy that exact same property anymore and status works the exact same way.

If someone else is ranked number one in your industry, you have to be at least number two.

Because physical things and social titles are strictly limited, chasing them forces you into

a constant state of competition. You view everyone around you as a potential threat.

But knowledge… KNOWLEDGE is not a limited resource.

Imagine you are trying to master an instrument, like the flute. If another musician masters

a complex piece of sheet music, or figures out some brilliant new breathing technique,

their skill does not subtract from your brain. Someone else having more understanding doesn’t

leave less understanding in the world for you. If anything, it just adds more to it!

So expand your knowledge, study what they did, listen to their timing, and learn from them.

Their wealth of knowledge also increases yours. So when you shift your focus from chasing material

goods to chasing a rational understanding of the world, comparison becomes completely irrelevant.

And that’s our video! But what did you think? I’ve been Dan, you’ve been awesome and if you enjoyed

what you saw or found it helpful at all, why not check out our full philosophies for life playlist?

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