What is the sparkle that sustains social media platforms? It is the appearance that things fall into place so easily with others.

We sometimes want to be able to drown in success. Sometimes to genuinely celebrate the success of friends and acquaintances. Sometimes to paint ourselves a picture of what success might look like. Sometimes to get lost in what could have been in an alternate universe.

It is a craving that makes us come back to Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram over and over again. A craving that makes us feast on success stories about athletes, startups and inventors. A craving that makes us seek refuge in self-help books that show us a path to that same success.

The admiration of success takes different forms. For example, we can easily admire people and successes that are far away from us. We read about successful entrepreneurs, startups, initiators, and muse at their success. We are impressed, marvel. Perhaps there is a hint of jealousy, but only a hint. It is so distant, that what they did you could never have done.

Something different happens with the successes that are closer to ourselves. Successes that we can identify with. Unprecedented success from someone you know personally. Someone of the same age, city, education or company. A sincere friend or family member is proud of that success. But for that same person, it is probably also a confrontation. A confrontation with what could have been. A small sparkle of jealousy.

That mutual comparison is in us, and we humans seem to have a hard time breaking through it. It is a comparison that pains us. Not because we concern ourselves with what is, but with what is not. We are concerned with what could have been, or will be in the future. As such, jealousy is a bringer of sorrow and pain. But at the same time, jealousy can also be seen as a reminder to recalibrate your life.

For me, this theory of Frederich Nietzsche is the core to understanding why we crave success stories so much. Nietzsche argued that the emotion of jealousy can be a compass. A compass for determining what you want in life. In that context, jealousy also offers a form of hope and of comfort. Hope that what you want may be within your grasp after all.

In the struggle of trying to get everything back in place every day, we can take comfort when someone else manages to do it. It gives a strange kind of satisfaction, it offers hope and inspiration. Perhaps it creates a spark of jealousy. A painful realization of your own inadequacy. But perhaps more as a reminder of the ideal image you strive for.

The only question is whether that hope turns into despair when those successes appear more beautiful than they actually are. Because there is a filter over them, or probably, because we make up a story in our heads of a string of successes we read about. That hope that turns to despair is the danger of pretty pictures.