You’re not better than anyone else

Hi,

If you're like most people, then chances are you're on social media for 3+ hours a day. Scrolling through the highlight reels of other people. It's so easy to get into a sort of dark place with all that noise. "Becky just got her PhD with Honors" or "Frank just started a new job at Google." I'll be the first to admit that it sometimes sucks to see other people doing so well on both social media and in real life. Not because I'm not happy for them. I am. But rather because I see them doing incredible things and think to myself: "Wow I'm wasting my life away!" I worry about plateauing, underachieving, or being mediocre. I really just don't want to be average.

To be fair, I grew up with parents that often asked questions such as "Did anyone do better than you?" after I finished a timed math test in elementary school. Then, they would go on about how the guy (his name was Matthew and I'll never forget him) that always beat me was gonna go on to Harvard and make millions. Not to mention the tennis... constant competition. Constantly trying to be better than all the other girls I competed with. But this post isn't about my childhood.

I'm finding myself in "comparison mode" a lot, even as an adult. I had a coworker leave recently for a job that paid 70k more than I'm currently paid. Yep, 70k. I felt as though I was having a quarter life crisis. My main consolation was that "someone out there makes less than me so I'm better than them." Sad isn't it? It doesn't help because I'm still comparing myself to someone else even if they're an arbitrary person.

In reality, no one is doing better than you or worse than you. We, as a society, have just decided that if you make a lot of money, have a bunch of degrees, a big house, or a nice car that you are doing better than other people. Unfortunately, you can't die with money, degrees, a house, or a car. Those four things do not matter on your deathbed.

As cliche as it sounds, the only person you should be comparing yourself to is your own damn self. Are you better off than a year ago? Yes? Then, good job. No? Then, what are doing right now to change that? If you're doing something to change your current situation, you're doing awesome. If you're not doing something to change your current situation, you should probably start looking into that...

You can create your own metric for success. For some people it's being able to complete a TikTok dance from start to finish. If that's your metric and that's what will make you feel happy, go for it. For me, it was, first, paying off my student loans. I know there are people that didn't have any student loans to begin with and were able to start their debt free lives sooner but I only have control over my situation. So I took steps to change my situation. That's literally all I can do.

There will always be someone that can do something that you can’t or that has something you don’t have. What ultimately matters is how you see yourself in comparison to yesterday, the year before, or maybe even the decade before.

Thanks for reading.