Do you know people who are "perfect"?

[Anonymous]

Are some people luckier than others? Yes. But nobody has it all, except George Clooney. His life has zero problems. On the other hand, George Costanza.......

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have friends, exes, relatives, colleagues, frenemies, or actual enemies who just seem to have perfect lives? They have beauty, academic and professional success, are amazing amateur gourmet chefs/beer makers/some other awesome thing, socially popular and always successful romantically. How do you deal with them? Do you ever find yourself comparing and feeling envious?

I have some friends like this and it has been increasingly difficult to deal with it, especially as 2014 turned out to be the year I lost my job after 2013 being the year I lost my long-term boyfriend. And yet some people just seem to coast through life with all its advantages and either no challenges or far fewer/lighter challenges than you.

It's an age old question I know! Just looking for others who have experienced this.

Yes, one friend like that. Then I discover she's on meds for anxiety and is a SAHM not by choice because she can't handle two school aged children plus a professional job. And her younger daughter is on the brink of developing an eating disorder. No one is perfect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I used to be one of these people. Good looking husband, gorgeous easy tempered baby, beautiful house. We had a great group of friends and I was told many times how wonderful our life looked.

We were miserable and when we separated, everyone was so confused. I am now remarried to someone who makes me truly happy. I have a good relationship with my ex and our daughter is thriving. However, I have a ton of debt left from the divorce and still haven't been able to leave the boring admin job I've had for six years.

How could people consider you perfect if you didn't have a career?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, some perfect SAHM moms who do marathons etc.

I find that people who run marathons are incredibly boring. I'm talking about the amateurs whose goal is to finish or qualify, not actual runners who are competitive in the race. These adults are trying to pretend they have some kind of athletic career long after the ship has sailed. It doesn't impress me and it's bad for the human body. And this ain't sour grapes because I actually did have an athletic career.

So you're perfect because you are a has been athlete? Or?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, some perfect SAHM moms who do marathons etc.

I find that people who run marathons are incredibly boring. I'm talking about the amateurs whose goal is to finish or qualify, not actual runners who are competitive in the race. These adults are trying to pretend they have some kind of athletic career long after the ship has sailed. It doesn't impress me and it's bad for the human body. And this ain't sour grapes because I actually did have an athletic career.

The one I am thinking about, does them all the time. She doesn't have to work, though she was a physiotherapist years ago.
She is super fit, rich, hot husband.

Is her first initial S?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have friends, exes, relatives, colleagues, frenemies, or actual enemies who just seem to have perfect lives? They have beauty, academic and professional success, are amazing amateur gourmet chefs/beer makers/some other awesome thing, socially popular and always successful romantically. How do you deal with them? Do you ever find yourself comparing and feeling envious?

I have some friends like this and it has been increasingly difficult to deal with it, especially as 2014 turned out to be the year I lost my job after 2013 being the year I lost my long-term boyfriend. And yet some people just seem to coast through life with all its advantages and either no challenges or far fewer/lighter challenges than you.

It's an age old question I know! Just looking for others who have experienced this.

To answer your question no i do not know anyone who is perfect BECAUSE NO ONE IS PERFECT. There are people who want you to THINK their lives are perfect or that their kids are perfect but sadly, it does not exist. EVERYONE has something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is making me depressed. I was hoping that somebody would post and say that, yes, they were a very lucky person who was beautiful, happily married, rich, and very happy. It makes me sad to think everybody in the whole world is miserable secretly. Is that what humanity is? A sea of total pain?

Come on: somebody tell me that at least one person has had a charmed, happy life, that it is them (and they should be over 40, or they haven't lived long enough)

Here goes: I had an idyllic childhood with a mother who really loved me. I am considered sexy (was very pretty when younger). Wealthy now. Well educated and successful. Married a handsome, professionally successful man. Two wonderful children who are as close to perfect as kids should be. However: not happily married; frustrated that I'm not even more successful at work; perennially unhappy at my lack of close female friendships.

[Anonymous]

I might be the person many think of as perfect, pretty live in a very expensive home, have a second vacation home, very successful husband, 4 great kids, the whole bit...BUT I am in a deeply unhappy marriage. On the outside looks peachy, but to live a day in my life is an unhappiness that most do not know. So go figure, there is no such thing as perfect. Its all smoke and mirrors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:perennially unhappy at my lack of close female friendships.

No wonder. Who could stand being around someone obsessed with checking boxes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's face it, EVERYONE wants to see a perfect asshole take a shit! Just wait and their time will come!

My wife (of many, many years!) has always referenced the couples in our neighborhood, kind of like a litmus test to our marriage. "Why can't we be more like so and so" and "look at their loving relationship." Well, as time marched on she saw one lady kill herself (which actually looked like her husband did it) and several others go thru very bitter and ugly divorces!

Even if the grass is greener on the other side ~ someone still has to mow it!

Not everyone. I get no satisfaction from seeing anyone go through rough times.

However, I'm content in my life and also don't compare.

Admit it! There's been at least one time in your life where you were happy to see someone you know fail at something!
IT'S HUMAN NATURE! I didn't say that it was the prettier side of human nature either....

There is nothing to admit.

I've been happy to see someone fail at work who battled with me about the direction something should have taken and then their project collapsed. However, this is more of a "I told you so".

However, to be HAPPY to see someone fail who has had much success and happiness in their life? No.

I'm not an envious person, so it is not really in my personality to get off on other people's struggles. I can't even fathom how miserable I would be if these were my thought patterns. I grew up in a good amount of poverty and family dysfunction, so for me, I'm extremely grateful for what I have. I don't covet my neighbor. I'm too happy celebrating my own success.

I'm not saying your thoughts are abnormal, I'm sure they are perfectly normal, but your normal is not mine and probably not a lot of people's. Your normal would be my miserable.

You are the second person on this thread that I like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Growing up, I heard all the time how my family was "perfect" and was very much like the Cleavers.

We were well behaved, respectful and nicely dressed children who all did well in school and took on leadership positions. We were exceedingly polite and respectful children, so this reputation was earned.

Here's the truth: I had a horrifically miserable and tragic childhood. My dad was a raging alcoholic, my mom enabled him and spent her married life trying her best to keep his secret. We never had friends over because my dad would begin drinking as soon as he got into our house and later, he'd drink en route home, so he'd come home drunk. We were held hostage by our dad's alcoholic rages and whims. He was physically and mentally abusive.

Alcoholic children learn to keep secrets and they do it well. Perfectionism is often overcompensation for misery.

This was my life with a son of an alcoholic Mother.

He had unpredictable rages and it was our family secret until the day he was arrested.

My life may have appeared perfect, but I've been paying the consequences for the secrets for years now. Finally starting to dig out of the mess.

[Anonymous]

NP... OP and everyone else, at the end of the day you know what matters MUCH MORE than whether there are perfect people and how to deal with people who are perfect or seem perfect? The comparisons do NOTHING to make things better in your own life, and dwelling on the envy, or wondering how they do it, or wondering what secrets they're harboring actually takes the focus OFF of your life, your family, your health, your wellbeing.

I understand this, I really do, because I'm almost 50 and it's taken me about the first 45 years to learn this for myself. And I agree, Facebook is the WORST because it seems like EVERYONE YOU KNOW is living a better life than you are. But most faintly sane people do *not* post about the health concerns, the affairs, the job misery, the serious challenges with their kids. Hopefully those people confide in trusted friends in real life, but on FB it seems like everyone is perfect except you. Everyone travels; everyone loves their perfect kids who do cool things; everyone has adventures; everyone knows fabulous people. Yes, those people do do those things, I don't think people lie much on FB... but NO ONE has it that perfectly, and it gives a totally distorting view of people's lives!

This is what I've learned and how I've stopped focusing on other people's seemingly rich, priviledged, exciting, "always happy" lives:

1. There's no such thing as a perfect life

2. The world actually is better and safer though if people are happy. So for those who really do seem to be happy and stable, that's good...hopefully they're raising sane, healthy, kind kids who won't be terrors as adults because they are so miserable and insecure. That's a good thing overall.

3. And this is the MOST IMPORTANT: Any focus on someone else's life takes the focus off of mine. Whatever is NOT perfect in my life, I am not any closer to resolving it or working through it if I'm spending time envying or wondering about someone else's life. ANd it's so easy to avoid the pain of our own lives by looking at other people, hence the wild success of reality shows and celebrity news.

But when you turn off the t.v.... when you get off the internet... when you come home from the party and are back "in" your own life, thinking about other people's lives is a distraction. It does no good and does a lot of harm.

So what I do when I find myself thinking about someone else and envying them, I ask myself - and I admit this will sound really hokey to some of you, but fuck it, it works for me incredibly well - I think "what small thing can I do right now or within the next day to bring myself a little more JOY and a little more EASE". I ask myself this and think about small things I can do, and also think about bigger joy and ease goals. Examples from the last few years, including when we went through a traumatic move, I lost my job, my DH hates his job, and health concerns about our child: I'm going to spend more time appreciating what is good, great and healthy about my child, and tell her even more than I already do; I'm going to trust that I will find a better job and not focus on my anger and bitterness at the loss, but on looking for a much better job (and I found one!); I'm going to get up a little earlier most mornings and just think about the day, think about what I predict will stress me out, and think about how I can handle it differently, including many interactions with DH.

Those are just examples from my life, but I'll tell you what, it has changed so much for the better in my life. It's so simple, yet so hard to do: focusing on yourself and what you can do to bring more joy and more ease into your life. But it is a WAY WAY WAY more productive thing to do with your mind than pondering other people's lives, whether they really are perfect or secretly miserable. Them being secretly miserable doesn't do anything to make your life better, it doesn't resolve whatever is stressing you out. It just maybe makes you feel a little less inadequate, but it's not worth the agony it brings before you see the chinks in their perfect armor.

Stop thinking about these people and their perfections. This is the life they have, this is the life you have, and you only have today and tomorrow to improve your own life. Don't waste today brooding over someone else's life - your own life needs your attention right now!