If you were 28 in 1989, there was a good chance you had absolutely no idea what most people your age were doing. And honestly, they had no idea what you were doing either. Maybe you’d hear that a former classmate got married. Maybe you’d run into an old friend at a wedding. Maybe your mother would casually inform you that somebody’s son had become an accountant.

Information travelled slowly. Comparison travelled even more slowly. Your reference group was relatively small. The people on your street. Your colleagues. A handful of friends. Some cousins. A neighbour whose life seemed suspiciously organised. That was basically it.

Today, before you’ve finished your morning coffee, you can discover that someone from school just bought a house, a former colleague is sailing around Greece, an acquaintance launched a startup, a stranger your age completed an ultramarathon, and somebody else appears to live in a kitchen larger than your entire apartment. All before 9:17 a.m.

We’ve accidentally become aware of far more lives than humans were ever designed to keep track of. And that may be one of the strangest social experiments of the modern era. The funny thing is that people often say social media creates comparison. I’m not sure that’s true.

People have always compared themselves. The difference is scale. In the 1990s, you compared yourself to the most successful person you knew. Today, you compare yourself to the most successful person the algorithm could find. Those are very different opponents. One is your neighbour. The other appears to wake up at 5 a.m., run ten kilometres, meditate, launch companies, make ceramics, and own linen trousers in six colours.

The average person in 1994 had no way of knowing that a 29-year-old graphic designer in Copenhagen had just bought a beautiful apartment. Today, not only do you know, but you’ve seen the apartment tour, the renovation process, the bookshelf styling, the morning routine, and a seven-part series explaining how they achieved “effortless living.” You know more about strangers than previous generations knew about their neighbours. And because we’re exposed to so many lives at once, comparison has become increasingly difficult to interpret. Each lifestyle appears desirable for approximately thirty seconds.

The result is a curious form of confusion. Not because we’re behind. But because there are now too many directions in which we could theoretically be ahead. Previous generations often compared milestones. We compare lifestyles. And lifestyles are much harder to rank. Which is better: stability or freedom? Adventure or routine? A beautiful home or the ability to move anywhere? A demanding career or abundant free time?

The answer changes depending on the day, your mood, and occasionally, whose Instagram Story you opened first. This is why so many people feel simultaneously successful and slightly inadequate. You can feel accomplished right up until the moment you encounter somebody who has optimised for a completely different version of success. And because the internet provides an endless supply of examples, that moment arrives with impressive regularity.

The strange irony is that while we have more access to other people’s lives than ever before, we’re often less certain about our own. Not because there are fewer options. Because there are too many. The modern challenge is no longer a lack of possibilities. It’s an overabundance of them.

We’re no longer asking, “What can I do with my life?” We’re asking, “Out of these 6,000 visible possibilities, which one actually belongs to me?” That can feel overwhelming. But it can also be viewed another way. Because hidden inside all this comparison is something previous generations had less access to: perspective. For the first time in history, we can observe hundreds of ways to build a meaningful life.

We can see entrepreneurs, artists, freelancers, parents, travellers, academics, creators, chefs, investors, and people inventing job titles that sound entirely made up. Yes, it’s occasionally exhausting. But it’s also expanding our imagination.

The challenge isn’t learning how to stop looking. It’s learning that visibility is not an obligation. Just because you can see someone’s life doesn’t mean you’re supposed to want it. This sounds obvious. Yet modern life constantly encourages us to collect aspirations that don’t belong to us. You see somebody opening a vineyard and suddenly wonder whether you should open a vineyard. You don’t even drink wine. You see somebody training for an ultramarathon and briefly convince yourself that maybe you’ve been called to endurance running. You get tired walking through airports.

The internet has turned aspiration into an all-you-can-eat buffet. The real skill is learning the difference between admiration and desire. You can admire someone’s life without wanting to exchange yours for it. In fact, that may be one of the defining skills of modern adulthood. Because eventually, after enough scrolling, something rather comforting becomes apparent.

Everyone secretly believes somebody else has figured it out. Which is reassuring. Because it means nobody is actually winning. We’re all just looking through each other’s windows. The only difference is that in the 1980s, you could see a handful of houses. Today, you can see millions. And perhaps the challenge of modern life isn’t learning how to close the curtains. It’s learning which windows deserve your attention and which ones are simply nice views on the way to building your own life.

With Love, Chaos, and Jazz. Always.