How to Escape FOMO and Jealousy With Horace's Wedge

You don't actually want what they have.

Horace was jealous.

The philosopher-poet was born into an impoverished Roman family, the son of a freed slave, and his father struggled to scrape together an education for him.

Growing up, Horace learned to work his only asset — his way with words. A rich patron took notice of his poems and gave him a house and stipend, but Horace would never be part of the elite.

This must have been a rub, since his social life revolved around the ostentatiously rich and powerful. They wanted him at their parties and poetry readings and there were always people with more prestige, money, and power next to Horace on the dining couches.

He found a solution to his jealousy, and it’s sprinkled throughout his surviving poetry. It’s a powerful technique for wanting what we have instead of what we don’t, and just as useful today as it was in 10 B.C.

Using Horace’s Wedge

This technique can be used as part of a philosophical journaling practice, but it also works in your head on the fly.

I call it, “Horace’s Wedge¹,” a cousin of the “decomposition” and “anchoring” exercises the Stoics brilliantly employed. We can see variations of it in the later Stoic writing. Horace probably didn’t invent it.

It’s useful when we’re jealous of what someone else has or is experiencing. If getting what they have is impossible, forces us to violate our morals, or requires giving up something valuable, this helps us let it go without regret.

The idea is to examine a person in their entirety — not only the aspects we envy — to realize their life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

The rich Roman patricians Horace spent time with had enviable prestige, power, and wealth. But it clearly cost them. Rich men had to traverse Rome with an entourage, or at least some slave bodyguards. They had no public anonymity. They maintained patronage networks, which meant people showed up at their villa every morning to ask for money, jobs, or favors. These and a hundred other obligations stripped them of freedom and spontaneity.

When Horace looked at the full picture, he realized he didn’t want to rise further up the economic, social, or political ladder. Doing so would cost him too much of the freedom he loved. The exercise also made him grateful for the simple pleasures he overlooked in his lust for new acquisitions and achievements.

Entrepreneur Naval Ravankant could have been riffing on Horace when he said:

“…I realized with all these people I was jealous of, I couldn’t just choose little aspects of their life. I couldn’t say I want his body, I want her money, I want his personality. You have to be that person. Do you want to actually be that person with all of their reactions, their desires, their family, their happiness level, their outlook on life, their self-image? If you’re not willing to do a wholesale, 24/7, 100 percent swap with who that person is, then there is no point in being jealous.”
— The Almanac of Naval Ravankant by Eric Jorgensen

It would be interesting to be Elon Musk and experience his way of spotting the root of problems and coming up with innovative solutions. But do you want the mercurial mood swings, outbursts, and public spats that go with his brain? Musk admits his mind is a “storm…people may think they'd want to be me, but they don't know.”

If you wouldn’t accept being saddled with all of Musk’s life, you’re foolish to want any part of it. The reality of his experience is actually pretty grim.

A Thousand Things You Don’t Want:

Movie stars: Sounds like a fun gig. But would you enjoy the paparazzi and selfie-seeking mobs stalking you, prying into every aspect of your life, and never letting you be anonymous in public?

US presidents: No matter how good of a job you do, half the population will hate you. Because a few crackpots want to kill you, you’ll never be allowed out in public alone again. You don’t simply pop over and visit a friend — you travel in a motorcade that shuts down whole neighborhoods and disrupts everyone’s life.

“Normal” people: The partner at the law firm probably worked himself to the bone and lost family and friends in the pursuit of all those billable hours, perhaps ending up divorced and alone. The start-up founder has a cool idea he’s working on, but do they have free time? Hobbies? A love life?

Vacations, Parties, and Events: FOMO exists. But when we look at what staying away allows, and what it costs those who attend, the picture flips. Deciding to stay home and go to bed instead of attending a party might allow you to get up early and work on a passion project that has more value to you than getting tipsy and gossiping. What’s your friend’s fancy vacation next to the peace of mind a fully-funded retirement account brings?

Scenes: Any social scene not eager to have us would require we bend into a shape we might despise to be accepted. Look at the people in the scene you’re jealous of in their entirety and reassess how badly you want in.

Toys: Yes, your friend’s new convertible and big house are nice. But what does his debt load look like, and how would it affect you to have the next thirty years of your life mortgaged to pay for it all? Suddenly, your paid-off beater and modest digs look like a pretty sweet deal — they taste like freedom!

Body: Six-pack abs, single-digit body fat levels, and a bodybuilder’s physique take work and discipline. That’s all fine, but do you want to spend that much mental energy on food and all that time in a gym? What would you have to give up to be as devoted to your body as the people who have these things?

Wanting What We Have:

Horace’s Wedge is a reminder: There’s a bottomless well of gratitude to mine if we acknowledge how much we’d miss the good things in our life if we exchanged them for whatever’s glittering at the moment.

With practice, the wedge becomes automatic. We use it to free up mental space and stay on track as temptations heave into view. I use it to help me with a life-long struggle — I’m interested in too many things, and I can’t pursue them all. I don’t have the time or resources. Trying to cram in more only divides my attention and stops me from following any of them to a satisfying conclusion.

So I “disparage” most things beyond the handful I’m devoting myself to:

Yes, thing, you’re nice, but not nearly as nice as living by my values and following through with what’s most important. You’re not valuable enough to distract me. I’ll consider you again in a few years.

It’s a tranquil and happy way to live.

1. Henry W. Johnstone, Jr suggested that "Rhetoric is a wedge" because it calls attention to unnoticed consequences or assumptions, or even to features of the physical world that previously escaped an audience's attention. Wedges are a form of logical argument, and in this sense, many ancient Greco-roman philosophical/spiritual exercises could be considered wedges deployed against our unexamined assumptions.