Comparison fosters discontent

"These characters all show how the desire for success cannot be fulfilled if we continually compare our own success with that of those who have had a little bit more. Only the most successful can be satisfied by that approach. Chekhov’s characters ring true. As psychologists have observed, our own sense of self-esteem is largely generated by how we compare ourselves to our peers. Yet we tend to compare ourselves to those apparently doing better than we are,discounting those who are less fortunate. That fosters discontent, since no matter how well placed we are in relation to the population as a whole, we only attend to that portion of it in comparison to whom we are losers."