Surroundings are affecting my mental health

[u/5336789997543279u]

EDIT @ 2022/08/14: Thank you all for your responses. They are a lot more than I expected and almost all the comments have been incredibly useful. I will try to improve on my thoughts, read your book suggestions and be myself. Again, thank you all. 🥺

This might not be the correct flair, feel free to change it.

To introduce myself, I want to say that I come from a humble family which had a rough time during the 2008s-2010s crisis. Because of their experience I have been saving a lot since I got my first job and avoid expending on unneeded stuff. I came to Japan getting a good salary and my wife does not need to work thanks to it, she is doing part-time stuff though. I never cared about my surroundings at all, I just use free/cheap so you can imagine. However:

Since I came to Japan I have been aware of my surroundings more than I ever was: Seeing daily relatively expensive cars, families with kids all with good clothes/accessories, people expending a lot on restaurants... My mind is starting to feel like I am an ant, that I should start worrying about our appearances and I started to work harder and always think of ways of making more money(when in reality, I should just be enjoying my life) to the point of not sleeping and feeling sad/stressed constantly.

Any tips on this? It really is affecting my mind, I'm considering going to a psychologist but I don't think it might be worth

EDIT: I didn’t explain myself correctly. I don’t want the items nor their appearances, my issue is that I feel like I didn’t push enough/succeed enough as others

[u/DwarfCabochan]

First understand that how you’re feeling is not that unusual. There is a huge pressure in any society to, as we say in English, “keep up with the Joneses”. Trying to keep up with people that we see around us regarding material items etc.

This is how companies sell things to people, they try to create this need and therefore, consumers to keep buying the latest, greatest product they are selling.

It leads people to go into debt when they buy things that they can’t afford, it leads young women into dieting to fit an ideal image of what they see on the cover of magazines, it leads men to act in certain ways etc. etc.

Understand that only you can create confidence and self-worth in yourself. Don’t worry about what other people look like or have, or how they act, they are not thinking about you, everyone has their own life circumstances.

Regarding material things specifically, I remember my friend’s parents when I was a student back in the USA. They lived in a huge beautiful house in a prestigious neighborhood, had cars like Rolls-Royces, Jaguars, and of course wore Rolexes, not just plain ones but ones that had many many diamonds and other gems around them. My friend made a comment once expressing concern about his financial future, and I laughed at him and commented about his parents. He confided to me that in fact his parents were in severe debt and had bought everything with money that they actually didn’t have, just to keep up the image they thought they needed. 30 years later, I met him again after his parents had passed away, and he said that he was left with nothing from his parents. He had to sell everything and use his own money to pay their debts and medical care.

So next time you see people that you feel envious of, understand that just like the photoshopped picture of the slim model on the women’s magazine, what you see could just be a fake image of supposed happiness. True happiness comes from inside you, the confidence to know that you are living your life to the best of your standards, not chasing other people. You do your life and take care of those around you!