Why Am I Jealous Of People With Jobs I'd Actually Hate?

A person follows others on Instagram and feels irrational envy when seeing curated images of their daily lives. The envy appears even when the viewer does not want the other person’s job, lacks interest in the work, and would not choose that lifestyle. The feeling is linked to how people present their best moments online, creating an impression that glamorous life is constant. Even when the viewer knows this intellectually, the emotional response persists. The viewer also realizes they do not actually know the other person’s real circumstances, yet the polished presentation leads to imagining that the other person must be happier or more fulfilled.

"People present their best days, their best angles, their most glamorous parties, and create an impression online that that's what their life is like all of the time, he says. But knowing it intellectually isn't the same as feeling it emotionally. Their lives look glamorous, and so I imagine that they must be."

"That longing makes sense to me. But with the weaver, I find myself staring at images of her - a person I've never met IRL - sitting behind her loom in flowy dresses, and I am jealous of her, despite the fact that I do not know how to weave, I have no interest in working as a weaver, and if I go 10 minutes without checking my phone I start gnawing at my own limbs."

"I follow a woman on Instagram - the wife of a friend of a friend - with a life that makes me irrationally envious. She shares a flat in South London with her illustrator husband, her cherubic toddler, and a 6-foot 19th-century loom. Yes, this woman works as a weaver. Her artisanal tapestries and rugs have been featured in Vogue, as well as several important-looking design publications I haven't heard of."

"It's impossible to see someone else's book on a big table at Barnes & Noble, or scroll past an acquaintance's buzzy Deadline announcement, without the briefest flicker of I wish that was me. (A moment later, I remember to be happy for them.) I mean, did you see Madeline Cash's ad for Gap? Hey, Gap, feel free to call me!"

Read at Bustle