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“I could have written that way better.”
“Why did she get the promotion?”
“I can’t believe people are paying to listen to that guy.”
In our culture, it’s hard to get away from comparison. H. L. Mencken, the famed early twentieth-century satirist, defined wealth as “any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year” than what your brother-in-law makes. But these days, it’s not just our brothers-in-law that we’re comparing ourselves to. It’s our colleagues at work, our friends from high school and college, reality TV stars, influencers, and anyone else whose social media feed crosses our sight lines.
In other words, it’s everyone.
I once attended a one-woman show—Lezzie with a Z, a nod to Liza Minnelli’s Liza with ...
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