Ever looked at your peers on the internet in your low moments and thought:
Man, why couldn’t I be as mature and accomplished as them? Why do they seem to have figured out their lives and I don’t? Why do they seem luckier than me? Why don’t I have the same level of experience and skills as they do? Why can’t I have what they have?
Or, why do people like and praise this person more? Why don’t they ever look at my accomplishments and traits with the same adoration? Why does this person seem to pick up new skills so much faster than I do? Why is this person so much cuter and lovelier than me? 😅😅😅
You already know, this list can go on and on and on…
I don’t know about you, but this kind of thought process has never given me any positive emotions. In my lowest moments whenever I thought like this, I only felt more terrible about myself.
I tried practicing gratitude to count the blessings in my own life, but somehow that couldn’t stop the problem of comparison either. That’s because it’s not actually addressing the problem at hand. You have everything but not that specific thing that you wanted that others already have.
So how do you make your heart bigger to make room to appreciate the good things others have in their lives instead of becoming envious of them?
There’s a phrase I heard in a video by Lavendaire:
“it’s not a competition, it’s a community”
It’s not a competition of who is the prettiest, who is the most talented, or the most successful. On planet earth, we all have our contributions to make. Together.
To build upon this concept, a thought that is helping me out with this is that when someone is successful, awesome, or beautiful, it only makes our world more beautiful.
So if I see someone who is very successful, or is doing well in their life, I should think to myself: “it’s awesome that they’re doing so well, it will only make our world more beautiful.“
The more the people around us are flourishing, the better is it for the world. When they are doing well, they’ll be able to make more positive contributions to the world. And we are all living in the same world. Isn’t it good that it keeps on improving?
It’s helpful to know that life is in phases. Sometimes you’re doing well, other times you’re not. But if we keep this perspective that the world needs more people doing well and making positive contributions to it, then we can replace our envy with genuine support for the people around us.
Instead, we can replace our dialogue of envy with:
“It’s good that you are so beautiful and in some ways, much more than I am. Because the world needs as much beauty as possible.
It’s good that you’re succeeding. It’s important that you succeed and be your most awesome self. So keep going and keep flourishing! And I’ll join you when I can, in my own way“ 🙂
Faiza 