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I've been on both ends of this equation. I'm the oldest in my family and my sister is 2 years younger. Even though she's incredibly bright, she had to follow me in school and every teacher she had compared her to me. Even though she did every bit as well as me, I had already set the bar. I'm the oldest grandkid, my aunties all love me and think I'm the golden child who can do no wrong, everyone drops everything when I come to visit...It's hard on her, and I feel bad sometimes. But I can't stop being who I am and I can't help that I was born earlier.
On the other hand, my best friend in high school was a year ahead of me, extremely pretty, and all the boys I liked had crushes on her. She got cast as the lead ahead of me in the school musical because she was pretty, even though she couldn't sing on key. Her family had more money. She has bigger boobs and shiny blond hair. Yadda yadda yadda. I was extremely jealous, to the point of actually not talking to her for a few weeks after she got the lead in the play. (Petty, I know.)
We are still close friends. She's still very pretty, she has a higher-paying job (even though I'm smarter, went to a better school, have more degrees, etc.), a perfect Martha Stewart house, a lawyer husband, and 2 blonde daughters. So it's hard NOT to compare sometimes.
On the other hand, she's lost 2 brothers and her father, her mother is a difficult woman to deal with, etc. Her life is far from perfect. At some point I realized that she compares her life to mine, too, and that we're completely different people with different strengths, weaknesses, talents, and priorities. Sometimes those strong adolescent patterns of thought stick around out of habit, and it takes a moment of clarity to make them disappear. I still have pangs of envy sometimes when I hear about her new car or her new job, but bottom line is I love her for who she is, and I like my life. And where I see things that she has that I want, I look at whether I really want them, or whether I think I SHOULD want them because she has them. If it's something I really do want (to fit better in my clothes, to have a better job), I think "why don't I have those things" and set goals and go after them instead of using the lack of them as an excuse to tarnish what is one of my oldest friendships.
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"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
- Anatole France
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