Having never been "at the top", I can't attest to this, but it appears to be true.
Notice I said 'appears'.
Do you know anyone who has more than you? Someone who's rich? Someone who takes interesting, expensive vacations? Someone who appears to have everything possible?
I do. There's a person (or two or three) I know who own vacation homes in Florida; they take R&R spa vacations at swanky resorts. They don't work outside the home and they go boating, water skiing, and jet off to Europe whenever the whim strikes.
And yet I've heard these people lament about how hard their lives are. How stressed they are. How tough it is to be happy. How they *need* that spa vacation because life has been so unbearable lately. My response (not to their face) is always bitter incredulity. What color is the sky on their planet? I realize it's all a matter of perspective -- maybe there's something hidden that we in the public don't see, but really ... on the face of it, how 'unbearable' could it be?
People like that are toxic, as far as I'm concerned. They exist to annoy you. They have a twisted view of the world. They purport to know how others feel, but *their* feelings are far more important. Their feelings about losing a game of tennis, about arguing with their spouse, about coping with recalcitrant children, are comparable to feelings of traumatic loss in others.
The best you can do is ignore them. If possible, whack them (see a previous post about Whack People). And if you can do neither, avoid them. An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of peeve.
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