How to make peace with envy

1. 01Write the list you'd never show anyoneFive people whose lives sting to look at. Honesty here is private and non-negotiable — a sanitised list teaches you nothing.
2. 02Cut it down to the ingredientYou rarely want someone's whole life. You want the autonomy, the audience, the calm, the physical work. Name the single ingredient.
3. 03Price the ingredient honestlyEverything they have was paid for with something — years, risk, a lost decade of weekends. Ask whether you'd pay that bill.
4. 04Downscale it to this month'Run a studio' becomes 'take one paid project on my own terms.' Envy is only useful once it becomes a task.
5. 05Mute what distortsCompare your interior to other people's edit and you'll always lose. Unfollow the accounts that produce despair rather than direction.

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