Death to comparisons

There are days when quite frankly all I want to do is cry. It feels like I have spent my life being compared to others who are have done more, said more, been more places, achieved more and quite frankly are just more than me and it hurts. I tell you comparisons like the ones I seem to make are a killer to your self-esteem, your confidence and quite frankly any sense that you are a good or interesting person. When the world only seems to value what you are not it can crush your happiness in a matter of milliseconds. Well at least it does mine.

And though I know people do not, and have not meant to do this, it is a constant battle for me to feel even remotely happy with what I am doing. It has seemed to me to that what I want is so unimportant, disinteresting or downright stupid of me to be doing or wanting to do any of the things I want to do that quite frankly I have doing nothing at all.

So I say death to comparisons because realistically what I am doing is comparing myself to anyone else; who is more popular, earns more, has done more or quite frankly I feel is just better than me, without any regard for whether I even value what they are like, what they have done, would get any pleasure, satisfaction or feel it is worthwhile to be like them in any way.

I know it makes no sense but there is a part of me that feels it doesn’t matter about me because I will never be good enough, I will never be like them, and it’s stupid. 

I try every time to take a step back from my feelings of unworthiness and remember to ask myself do I even want to be like that, do I even want to achieve that? If  I answer no to these then it doesn’t matter what they have done, so then I ask myself, what do I want? And am I getting there, am I taking the steps to get me there? Because if I am then it doesn’t matter that they are doing this or that because it is not what I want and I am taking the steps to get what I want out of life.

Of course there are always times when I do want to do the things that they are doing and then it is about whether it is a realistic goal, can I achieve that or do I need to take a more smaller steps to get there and then trying to do them. But I feel very sad that I feel very guilty for not being more than I am, for not being like others even though I do not wish to be like them. The simple reality is that I feel they are happy and content with their lives in a way that I am not. I feel they have what they want or at least the belief that they will have it and then will go out and get it, something that I lack.

I hate that I feel everyone else has what they want and that in fact everyone else has the ability to have whatever they put their mind to, as I do not. I feel so helpless to change what is going on in my life and it has been these feelings that I have been working on changing because to believe I can is the only way I will even try to change things because when I feel I am already beaten, it is not worth even trying.

If this is you too then consider stopping comparing yourself to what others have achieved and start working on what you want. There is no shame in it taking longer for you than for others as their lives are not yours. They have not had the difficulties that you have, nor the things that you have had to deal with.

And if you’re anything like me you’ll have already told yourself that other people have had it harder than you and still managed to achieve these things. Well stop, because you have just compared yourself to someone else again. You cannot know everything about someone else, although you may see hard ship and it may well have been really sodding hard, there are many hardships in your own life that you will not see. They have just been your life and they may have been far harder to deal with than the ones you think this other person has had. 

Now I am not saying that feeling that other people have had it hard and having sympathy for that isn’t a good thing but just ask yourself how much sympathy you have for yourself, for the hardships that you have endure before you rattle on in your head about how useless you are. Be honest how hard has your life really felt?

Don’t think you’ve had any real hardships? Well think again…a hardship is something that is difficult for you, something that has caused you pain and we all have them.


So please don’t let these feelings of helplessness overwhelm you into apathy. There is always something that can be done, it may not bring immediate relief or change but in the longer term life will feel better.