There is a saying that describes what I want to say in this article:
“Grass is always greener at a neighbours house. You either move to have a bad neighbour, or you make your grass greener.”
I feel that this perfectly describes the way all of our lives are.
We always look around and compare ourselves with everyone around us, starting from the moment we start to understand what surrounds us in childhood.
As an example, look at how kids grades get compared in school. Or who can run faster during sports. Constantly, from the beginning of our path in this world, we have to fight and improve to become the best.
That is why when we grow up, and now in the world of adults, we still tend to compare ourselves to everyone who is around us.
Comparing frenzy
Do you know that people would rather earn $100 000 dollars if everyone around them were earning $50 000, than earning $150 000 when everyone around is earning $200 000.
That describes perfectly the way our brain is structured. It doesn’t necessarily matter what you have achieved. It matters how does it compare to everyone around you?
You might not realise, but that attitude is one of the most destructive attitudes you can have that, in the long run, will cause a lot of suffering and bad scars that won’t be healed that easily.
So how do you stop comparing yourself?
Well, to be completely honest, it will not be easy to stop altogether. But there are certainly ways to make it easier.
As an example would be to stop checking social media so damn much. Once you stop and instead focus on yourself, rather than on everyone around you, you will realise how good your life and you are. You will start to see small little things that really do matter whilst Instagram and Facebook never show them in the feed.
Highlight feed of everyone around you doesn’t make you happier. The only thing that it does is making you less likely to be focused and being in the moment. Plus, the high levels of stress and depression that come together with social media don’t help.
What you can do if you compare
As in the saying above, no matter who you look at, it will seem that their life is better, and you will find something that you will be jealous of. While in reality, none of the things that you made up in your mind are real and no matter who you look at, they have their own problems and successes.
But if you can not stop yourself from comparing, it all depends on what you do about it.
Feeling sad for yourself and being depressed is the easiest way out, but in the end, it doesn’t help anyone and rather than helping only makes things worse. It is the same as running from problems that are chasing you and you escaping them. All it does is making things worse.
The second thing that you can do is actually to do something about your drawbacks. You saw an amazing body on Instagram that you wish you had? Sign up for a gym and start going. Stop eating junk food.
You saw an amazing vacation that you want to go on? Look for ways to cut down on useless spending and try to increase your income stream so that you can afford it. Maybe save more instead of shopping for useless items.
Understanding what matters
If you really want to deal with the problem of looking at others and being unhappy, you should really question your life values and write down what your goals are and what makes you happy.
Most of us are chasing money in life when in reality, we are either wasting money on things that we don’t need, or we don’t need as much money as we think to be happy.
Getting more income and more money can seem like a good idea, but it leads to sadness and loneliness most of the time.
Really critically ask yourself what you want from life and what you are trying to achieve. What is the end goal of all this, and who do you really want to be in the future.
Once you can honestly answer these questions, comparing yourself to someone who has a completely different outlook on life should seem silly.
Klim Y
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