On one of my social media timelines, someone recently shared an interview fragment claiming “happiness is your quality of life minus envy”. Simple. Brutal. And yet, it’s more complicated than that. The real issue? We’re all playing by a leaderboard we never agreed to. A few years back, I swapped my station wagon for a smaller car: better mileage, more comfort, less cost. By any rational measure, an upgrade. The response? A "hmmm", followed by a slow look toward the parking lot. That "hmmm" is the sound of a system measuring us by the wrong metrics. From the Harvard Study of Adult Development to Blue Zones and palliative care research, the evidence points in the same direction: what truly matters (relationships, purpose, community) rarely shows up on the leaderboard we’re handed. So what does it cost to keep playing by the wrong ones?