I think you need to provide more information to get good advice. Since it wasn't originally provided it may even require some personal reflection. You ask how

I think you need to provide more information to get good advice. Since it wasn't originally provided it may even require some personal reflection. You ask how to continue being gracious and stop being depressed/envious, but why are you depressed/envious in the first place? It may sound like a stupid question, but it's important to how to approach the problem. Do you feel depressed because you feel inferior to your friends? Or do you feel depressed because you want to have the money itself? Or is it something else? If the first reason, that can be a lot "easier" fixed, as it doesn't require you to acquire wealth. This is personal acceptance. It's also something that can possibly be helped just by talking to the people you are envious of. Though I'll leave more advise to the other comments. The comment about your cousin makes me think that you feel inferior to these people and it's not necessarily the wealth amount itself. For the second reason, I think a lot of people covered it fairly well in this thread, but you should think hard about what exactly you value. How much does what you really value cost in a dollar amount? Sure, you can probably rack up millions in dollars in ideas from travel, to trying expensive things, or having a huge house, but how much of that is really important to you. How much more happiness would a $1,000,000 house bring you verses a $200,000 house (or some cost adjusted similar comparison to your area)? Why are you jealous of someone's $1,000,000 increase in property value? If you received $1,000,000 right now, would that be enough to make you happy or would you still want more? I won't make the claim that seeing my friend's success doesn't make me feel any envy or additional drive to do more. However, I am currently relatively content with my life, I have a certain reasonable lifestyle in my head that I am aiming for, and I have a goal to get there. Anything more would just be gravy and not something I would feel any significant depression or envy over.