They live on every street, nestled in the corner cul-de-sac lot, with the big SUV parked next to the mint-condition Harley Davidson. The basketball goal stands proudly on the neatly manicured driveway, which leads to a glistening pool complete with a diving board and slide. Mom is a hottie—tan with perfectly manicured toes and great clothes—while dad travels quite a bit, remaining elusive. The kids are always the best at everything they do, seemingly the most privileged on the block! We wave and smile casually as we pass them on the road, but inside, we are filled with envy—silently wishing we would see their home listed in the weekly foreclosure notices, just so we could exclaim, “I knew it!”
The Joneses have been around since the dawn of mankind. The cavemen who first came up with the idea of getting a haircut and made exquisite soaps from rosewood pulp bore the same last name, and so their legacy continues. They are the “have mores,” “do betters,” one-uppers, and the happiest people we have ever seen. But do they really exist? Or are they simply a figure of our own wild, less-than-trustworthy imagination?
Do the Joneses Really Exist?
Every family, whether they are the Smiths or the Joneses, lives a life completely defined by their own value system. Few, if any, family systems share that value system entirely. But one thing that all humans share is the ability to perceive the world around them through distorted lenses, making things appear completely different from how they actually are. Unfortunately, our perception and belief that something is true makes it true. So when we perceive someone—or another family—as always having more, always being the “lucky” ones, or, even worse, out to get us by beating us at everything, then hands down, they do! Our anger, frustration, jealousy, and victimized way of thinking only serve to make us more right—and even less likely to succeed ourselves. As complicated as this may seem, it is actually quite simple!
What really happens when we try to keep up with someone or something else is that we are living a life defined by outside sources and appearances. When this is the case, we are toiling toward a goal that will never fulfill us personally or as a family, which will make us feel like a “have not” regardless of who our neighbors are. The truth about the Joneses is that they are probably jealous that your husband cooks dinner every night or that you only have one mortgage on your home. To the Joneses, you are the Joneses! So all this time is spent coveting and feeling jealous (which is perhaps normal) without facing the realization that 100% of the time, we are all more alike than different. Mrs. Jones is probably annoyed that few of the other mothers talk to her and thinks she lives in a subdivision of snobs, while Mr. Jones just wants to be home all week to catch his kid’s baseball game or enjoy his hottie wife. The perception of the grass always being greener undoubtedly leaves us colorblind.
The truth about the Joneses is that they have a bunch of secrets, just like we do, and perhaps they, too, are totally unfulfilled as they try to live up to a way of life that robs them of their joy. Or perhaps they are lucky, happy, hardworking, and diligent people who create wealth inside and out. If the latter is true, it would be wise to befriend them, so we, too, could learn the secrets to true success. But until we know them, it’s silly to judge. And as adults, it’s silly to be envious or ugly in our thinking, especially since it will cause us more harm than anyone else.
A wise person once told me that normally, what we don’t like about other people is really something we don’t like about ourselves. We use other groups, other people, and certainly the Joneses, to mirror our intimate selves emotionally. Perhaps the idea of the Joneses is just our familial mirror. As you begin to see the people you don’t like in life in this light, it gives great pause to consider what we could or should change internally or within our family so that we will be less threatened by people we “perceive” as doing well—or at the very least, doing better than us. Another idea is that we begin to manifest gratitude in our responses toward things, others, and especially ourselves, so we will never truly notice our lack.
The truth about the Joneses is that they exist more completely and entirely in our own minds. Although we might believe or perceive that they live on our block, it is only true because we believe it to be. It is never finance, status, importance, or the collection of material things that makes someone appear or become better or more important than us. Rather, it is the depth to which we feel or perceive our own inadequacies and unfulfilled desires that defines our success in life. The Joneses, quite simply, are a fabricated theory that, if allowed, can seemingly and overwhelmingly stop us from manifesting abundance and joy in our own lives.
