The person admired from a distance has a daily life the comparison usually leaves out.

Admiration at a distance compares your whole life to somebody’s edited highlights. You know your own dull mornings, your worries about money, the hours that went nowhere; of them you know the work, the achievement, the photograph. The comparison is not close, and it is not honest, because one side has been summarised and the other has not. Whoever you envy is having a Tuesday too.

When you catch yourself measuring, add the unseen half back before you draw a conclusion. Nothing changes about their life, and quite a lot changes about how yours looks once the two are described in the same terms.