Stop comparing yourself

See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

There are a lot of things in this world that can get you down, make you feel depressed, stressed out, anxious and generally not good enough. But nothing hits harder and faster than what you do to yourself, because all in all you know yourself the best, so you know where it hurts. One of the easiest ways that you can get yourself down is by comparing yourself to other people, we all do it sometimes, I do it much more than I should. The thing is though, comparing yourself with others is not going to help anyone at all.

In this post I am going to list down the reasons why I think comparing yourself isn’t helpful or useful in the hope that it helps someone else out and in the hope that writing it down fortifies it better for myself as well. So anyway here goes:

1. You are not the same person; no matter how much you compare yourself to someone else you are not the same person. You are your own person, you have your own way of doing things, even if it isn’t the same as someone else’s way. It doesn’t mean your way is bad, it just means it is different.
2. Everyone’s job is a little different, if one person does a particular job well it doesn’t mean they can do your job too.
3. Everyone has their strengths and shortcomings, just because you see how good someone is doesn’t mean they don’t have things that they are bad at.
4. Everyone has their good days and bad days, if things are not going your way then maybe you are just having a bad day.
5. Even if they can do things you can’t, remember that you can do things they can’t.
6. Just like they don’t know how you got here, you don’t know how they got here. You don’t know what they have been through so it is better not to be so quick to pass judgement on yourself or them.
7. Don’t take yourself too seriously; life is serious enough as it is, so try bringing some joy into your life instead.

Comparing yourself to others is a very natural thing to do, but at the same time one has to remember that it is a useless endeavour. Remember that more often than not, everything is not as clear cut as yes or no, right or wrong and black or white, there is more to you than the sum of your parts; so comparing yourself to others is pointless. Instead, try to make yourself feel better. Remind yourself of the things you’re good at and try to do more things that make you happy rather than just doing things because you have to do them. We’ve got a long life ahead of us, may as well make the most of it.