It's sort of an interesting litmus test for how people view the world, I think. Not a hard and fast one, but on being told that you're richer due to a better quality of life, more freedom, greater access to what are effectively modern miracles, your wealth going further, less effort required on your part to survive, people seem to have one of two reactions:
- Yup, modern life is awesome, wouldn't trade it for a king's castle in 1020.
- Yeah but there are still a bunch of people richer than me so it doesn't matter how much progress we've made I'm still a peasant.
For some people it's not enough that even those technically living below the poverty line have better lives than even royalty in ages gone past, can expect to live longer, survive catastrophic events better, and certainly have access to more fonts of learning and entertainment than any of those people could have dreamed. That speaks of an ingrained jealousy, a fact that they can only measure success or prosperity by judging whether others are higher or lower than themselves.
Living your life comparing your success against the success of others is one of the most depressing, poisonous things you can do. I'm not even kidding, if you catch yourself doing this, you should absolutely challenge those thoughts when possible. You should always validate yourself by the measure of your own accomplishments and what you have, rather than sourly eyeballing them against someone else. There's no way you can be happy or successful when you measure happiness and success by whether or not you're the happiest, most successful person you know of.
