The person you envy may envy a freedom you treat as an inconvenience.

Envy runs in both directions along the same road. The person whose situation you want is often looking back at something in yours that they gave up to get there, and the freedom you mostly experience as an inconvenience, the odd hours, the lack of ties, the smaller commitment, may be the exact thing they miss. Neither of you is wrong about the other’s advantage. Both of you are seeing the part that is easiest to see.

List what your current arrangement lets you do that theirs would not. Read it the next time comparison starts, and treat it as evidence rather than consolation.