I recently came to the realization that a lot of my antisocial attitudes are purely due to the fact that I can't stand being around anyone who is happier or more fulfilled than me. It's petty, but having to socialize with anyone who has a family or a well-paying job fills me with an intensely caustic jealousy, especially if they're around my own age.
The problem with this kind of thinking, beyond it being so toxic - mainly to you, but to others around you as well - is that it takes on a life of its own. If your life dramatically improved tomorrow, and had a ton of money, wonderful friends, a fulfilling job, I don't think for one second you wouldn't still be comparing your life to others. There will always be people with even more money, more friends, even cooler jobs, etc etc. Is there anything on earth that would resolve those feelings?
I don't know that there is any step-by-step guide to becoming a less jealous person, but there are a couple of things that have helped me feel more at peace with things. First is the realization that people are generally much less happy than they let on. The experience of meeting someone who is smart, funny, attractive, talented, well off, etc., thinking that they seem super happy with life, and later finding out that they are just a complete mess no longer surprises me. We tend to be way more open about it in here, so I get the opposite experience - finding out that people who are so miserable can actually have all kinds of wonderful things going for them. It's harder to be jealous of people when you realize that the most super upbeat, everything is awesome, facebook page can be a defense mechanism against the bullshit in peoples' lives. I have a friend who seems like the most well adjusted, happiest girl on the planet, from a family that projects this image of being the ultimate Christian family. And man, are they all just fucked up beyond belief. I tend to take things a bit more at face value and I can remember telling my wife what a sweet, happy, wonderful person, with a wonderful life, our friend seemed, and her looking at me like I was a crazy person (in her defense, I totally am). Our friend is in the middle of a messy divorce with a guy who seemed another largely untroubled friend. It turns out they were estranged almost from day one of their marriage, and there was abusive behavior going both ways. I had zero clue.
The other thing is to realize that there are always other people who better espouse the qualities we want to be known for. I can name
just from people I actually know, not counting people who are actually famous for this or that quality, people who are better looking, smarter, funnier, better read, nicer, kinder, more athletic, healthier, wealthier, more accomplished, and on and on. We all dream of being the absolute best at something, that's a societal ideal. But, in reality, it's the combination of things that make people likable. There are many, many people in this community who will tell you how utterly unlikable they are, and how they're no good at anything. Yet I really like just about everyone I interact with in here (the complete assholes don't generally last long). You have to find some level of comfort in the unique combination of things you do. You're not going to find another person who offers what you do. It helps if you are very honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses. I'm not the kind of person who thinks that every bad thing that happens to you is a wonderful learning experience, but at the very least, it should help you develop empathy. I was way more of a jerk before things took some serious turns for the worse in my life.
Finally, the secret weapon of the introvert is time. I'm way more extroverted than I ever thought - I'm still figuring that out. But the thing is, I still need quite a bit of time to myself. I realized that the more connected I am - and there was a time when people could and would contact me on steam, skype, IRC, text message, email, GAF, twitter, tumblr... - the less time I have to kinda develop as a person. I learn a ton from my friends, I love them dearly, and I love talking to them, but I need time to myself to read and write and practice calligraphy and write letters and do all this stuff that is key to who I am. But the neat thing is, having that introverted side, and liking to have time to myself, I can use that time to make friends and fuel the extrovert side. Here's an example:
If I'm known outside of this community on GAF, it's for making ridiculous threads about pens and pencils (which in turn got me into calligraphy). Writing each of those threads took a lot of time, spent alone, reading and writing. But the upside is that I've made friends and gotten a lot of positive encouragement because I took that time away from socializing to explore something I'm passionate about. It quickly became clear that I was NOT the most knowledgeable person about collecting pens, or drawing, or any of it. But I was the guy willing to put in a bunch of extra time to make the threads fun. People would post their incredible collections of, say, fountain pens and, much as I'd love to have some of them, any kind of feeling of jealousy was really mitigated because they liked that I made the thread, it gave them a chance to share, and I felt good because I got such nice feedback. So instead of a me vs. them mentality, I became part of this new community. It's the same with calligraphy. I'm still not great, but I practice and share what I do and check out other peoples' work. There are people with writing I would kill for, but instead of being super jealous, it's fun to interact with them and kind of be on the same team. I take my alone time to make things for people, send them messages and letters (communication that proceeds at a more leisurely, controllable pace), write things that I think people might enjoy...A lot of people are uncomfortable spending ANY time alone nowadays. You can distract yourself being social all day, but I think I get a lot out of taking some time to do things that are meaningful both to me and to other people.
That won't always work, and it's not like GAF is the friendliest place on earth, but if you find something you're good at, or are willing to work hard practicing something you want to be good at, and you present that to the world not in terms of how great or awful you are, but in the spirit of wanting to share it with others and talk to other people who are into whatever, I think it's a good start to tamping down the jealousy. Or if you want to run a marathon or learn yoga or whatever, the willingness to do it and work at it is way more endearing than being effortlessly good at it.
Having a sense of humor helps. I laugh about my own myriad shortcomings (being short is one of them) and at some point I stopped trying to hide them and now I'm pretty open about them. I get teased MERCILESSLY about all sorts of petty insecurities and I hope it's actually endearing that I'll laugh along and not leave in a huff. It helps me a ton too to learn to embrace exactly who I am and not be so negative about myself.