Envy and Comparison: What the Lake Taught Me About What We Can’t See
- Dr. Scott Eilers, PsyD, LP
- Feb 8
- 3 min read
When What Looks Calm Starts to Feel Heavy
If you’ve ever looked at someone else’s life and felt a quiet knot form in your chest, this is for you. Not the loud kind of envy that turns into resentment, but the subtle kind. The kind that shows up when everything seems fine on the surface, yet something underneath feels unsettled. That feeling doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It usually means you’re filling in gaps you don’t have access to.
That’s the heart of what I explore in Truth 2 of The Light Between the Leaves. And it started for me on a quiet lake.
What the Lake Made Clear
Growing up, there was a bay we loved to fish. Clear water. Calm days. A sense of safety. We could see straight down into the shallows, and we assumed that what we saw was all there was. Until one afternoon, when something enormous came up from the depths without warning.
That moment didn’t just scare us. It changed how we understood the water. We realized that calm surfaces don’t tell the whole story. There can be real danger, real complexity, hidden just beyond visibility.
Why Envy Grows So Easily
Envy often forms when we mistake visibility for truth. We see outcomes without context. Highlights without history. Confidence without knowing what it cost. When you compare your internal experience to someone else’s external presentation, you’re working with incomplete information.
Over time, that comparison can make you question your own progress. It can drain motivation. It can quietly distort how you see yourself.
The solution isn’t forcing gratitude or pretending those feelings don’t exist. It’s learning how to stop drawing conclusions from partial data.
Practical Shift That Helps
One practical shift that helps is slowing down the story you tell yourself about other people. When you catch yourself assuming someone else has it easier, better, or figured out, pause there. Remind yourself that you’re looking at the surface of their lake, not the depths.
Another step is redirecting attention back to what’s actually in your control. Small, repeatable actions. Honest self assessment. Progress that isn’t visible to anyone but you still counts.
This isn’t about lowering your standards or dismissing ambition. It’s about anchoring your sense of worth to what’s real, not what’s inferred.
What I Hope You Take With You
Most of the time, envy isn’t telling you that someone else has more. It’s telling you that you’re missing information. When you stop treating appearances as evidence, the pressure eases. You get your footing back. And from there, it becomes much easier to move forward with clarity instead of comparison.
That’s the work. And it’s learnable.
If this resonates with you, I go deeper into this story and the lesson behind it in the video below. This is a preview pulled directly from my upcoming book, The Light Between the Leaves, where I unpack how these moments shape the way we see ourselves and others, and how to work with that awareness in real life.
(If this post hit home, you’ll probably connect with my new book, The Light Between the Leaves. It’s a practical guide for the days when “try harder” stops working.
-Scott
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