Comparing Yourself to Others is Always a Losing Battle

With social media, it’s easy to get caught up in the glitz and glamor of everyone’s perfect side. It’s also very easy to get caught up in comparing your selfies in your bathroom to your friend’s latest Tahiti vacation. You might feel like a loser just because you see a photo of a friend buying his/her first house, or another rocking out to one of your favorite bands. It’ll make you feel like you are far behind, but life is not a race.

If you continue to compare yourself to others, you’ll always be on the losing end. You will always find someone who is doing something spectacular, or having an experience that you’ve yet to have. experienced. Comparisons don’t have a line drawn. You could compare with others against job titles, wealth, and every other material thing you can think of. This means if you have the better job title, you’ll inevitably look at something else that you’ll be losing in.

You Are Special

You should realize that you are a special human being with no replication. That goes for you and the people you try to compare yourself against. We all have different influences, different experiences, different timelines, different ideas, and different thoughts. If your personality isn’t the same, why would you think that your status in life would run parallel to another person?

How to Stop the Comparisons

The best way to stop comparing yourself to others is to celebrate your individuality. Learn to then celebrate your accomplishments and the accomplishments of others as individual occurrences. When someone shares an accomplishment with you (whether in person or social media), be genuinely happy for that person. Your ego will be the one to make the happiness that you should be sharing in about you.

P.S. If you haven’t read Dr. Jordan B. Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life. You probably should. He has an entire chapter dedicated to comparing and how you should compare yourself to the you of yesterday.