the.com/keeping up
a treadmill disguised as a lifestyle, where the finish line moves the moment you get close.
means the constant effort to match the pace, status, or standards of those around you, often at the cost of your own.
from traces to the idiom keeping up with the joneses, coined from a 1913 comic strip about a family bankrupting itself to match neighbors it never actually meets.
comic strip originthe joneses never appear on screen once.
psychology termrelated to social comparison theory, coined 1954.
ironythe people you compare to are also comparing.