The hardest part about it all is trying to stay objective. Level-headed. Rational. Not spending money? That’s the easy part.

Somehow I woke up to a life where I am embarrassed by how The Wife™ and I stack up against people, especially others in her family, when it comes to money. We often joke with each other that we’re “the poor ones” in the family, the ones who take the hand-me-downs and leftovers, the ones without dining room furniture or new cars. We know that we’re very, very, very far away from actual poverty, and I’m even more embarrassed to admit that we allow ourselves this tiny bit of exaggerated self-pitying. But when it comes to the notion of “keeping up with the Joneses,” you can’t help but notice that we don’t stack up.

Putting our situation into different spheres of context can dramatically change things. Compared to her sister and brother-in-law we’re ass-poor, Sally Struthers poor. Compared to her friends, we’re relatively on-par. Compared to the median income of those in our state, we’re above average. And obviously comparing us to the real, true survivors of poverty, both inside our own country and beyond, we’re veritable royalty, living like obnoxious, whiny gluttons. Unfortunately, it’s not possible for one to carry a global perspective with them at all times, for instances when a little bit of refocusing is due. It’s the day-to-day problem of being compared to those around you.

Not spending money is easy. Being able to override the instinctive comparisons between yourself and those closest to you is the hard part. When you realize the fact that, as much as you love so-and-so’s awesome huge-ass TV and wish you had one too, you need to just accept it as a valid desire and let it be. Not letting it define you, or make you feel like a failure because you “don’t make enough to have that too” — that’s a challenge that I’m not sure many of us are able to do instantaneously.

Christmas with my wife’s family this year will be hard, as it usually is, because of this. Watching friends move to new, custom-built houses is a duplicity of happiness and creeping envy. Looking towards the switch from 2007 to 2008, I really hope I can focus on learning to not feel like a disappointment because someone else is successful. It’s tough, but I think I can do it. And learning to stop joking about poverty, that’s a no-brainer. That stops now.