The confidence that comes from comparison is a brittle confidence.
If you only feel confident when you have the biggest yacht in the harbour then you’re vulnerable. All you need is someone to come along with a bigger yacht and that’s it, your confidence is shot. Your cherished identity as the guy with the biggest yacht has vanished.
You could react to this by buying a bigger yacht and reclaiming your position as top dog. Or you could move to a smaller pond to be the big fish in. Or you could build an internal bedrock of confidence in your own self worth that you don’t need external trinkets for validation.
You can often tell the reason for buying an object in the way the owner describes it to their peers.
The guy who bought a yacht in order to have the best yacht in the area will tell you all the specifications of the yacht (especially it’s size), it’s top speed eg. 0-20 knots in ten seconds (or a more realistic version) and how much it cost.
This guy tells you these things because he needs you to feel jealous. That was the point of buying the yacht.
If we contrast this to fellow who bought a yacht to fulfill his rubber ducky fantasy.
He excitedly tells you about how many duckys he can fit in the bathtub, he shows you the spot he’ll waddle around quacking in his rubber ducky costume and he tells you of his plans to paint the whole yacht yellow.
This guy doesn’t care that his yacht isn’t the biggest or the most expensive or that his friends are judging him hard. He has bought this yacht for himself, because it makes him happy.
Thomas Duggan 